A Time to Be 1

"Blast!"
"oh whats the matter now?" i ask Eliza as she throws new clothes onto the mountain of dresses in the cornor of her room.
"i can't find me bloodly scarf!" She snaps. Shes always about a mouth on her when shes angry. Not to mention some of her surprising out of place cockney seems to slip. Its her grandmother rubbing off on her.
"stop searching and come on! we are late as it is, and i do not care about what fashionable attire is lost to your mess of a wardrobe!" I shouted back as i went to walk out the door
"Im comin, im comin" she scuffed as i lock the door behind me. We wonder down the crowded streets to the trolley.
Once aboard Eliza's aburbedly changed. "i can't believe i am about to be married! imagine the wedding! it will be more glamours than the Queen's, minus the huge church and whatnot becuase you know how John loves small churches" she smiles.
Today her John is to propose to her, a secret i accidently let slip last night. I contiuely kick myself in my mind for this. I hold onto the hope that John never finds out for he'll loathe me for sure. Still, i cant help but be excited for Eliza, even though this means she is leaving me. I will be alone in our aparentment and utterly bored out of my head. She has been my friend since we were tikes and lived with me for the past two months while i worked and while she pretended to do the same for her parent's sake. Oh they will be it a terrible huff once they discover that i knew of this all along. Their disapproving faces are worst for me to imagine then my own mother's. She, on the other hand, would be in quiet a jolly mood, having always favored John to the other trillion boys brought home by Eliza. She would go raving about Eliza's fit gentleman who stole her heart while i sit at home, writing. She did not approved of my being a writer. Though the London Paper and many a magazine have thrilled over my stories, she will never be found complementing me. She now said that it was my unsettled nature that got me into trouble, always wanting excitement and never settling for what i am or have. She never used to think this, until i voiced my opinion of living merely in London and wanting to travel the world to write, which she angrily denied in a way that made me no longer bring up the matter.

"wait? when is your mum coming into town?!" Eliza broudes excitedly.
"Just because she will be the only one pleased with your engagement does not mean that she will come into town just to see your ring!" i laugh

I was wrong.

My mother comes swirling into our aparetment the very next day, humming the wedding march and carrying flowers to congradulate Eliza.
"Let me see it, darling!" she shouts, holding out her hand for Eliza's, who is soaking in the attention.
"Blimey! That has to be the most beautiful ring i ever did lay eyes apon. and what a marvolous bride you will be!" she squeaks in a tone i am sure only dogs could fully comprend.
"oh yes, how are you Cerean?" she says now turning to me for the frist time, a dull look in her eyes compared to the pervious sparkle it held for Eliza
"im.." i start to say
"so darling have you set a date?" she turns back to Eliza and they run off into the bedroom for Eliza's calendar of events.
"im bloodly perfect" i sink down into the couch.



Its dark and rainy as i make my way across the streets. Its always gloomy in London here lately, even after the new prosperity of smog-free laws and such. I smile reliazing the poor weather arrived with my mother, a most approiate sign. My hair dripps cold drops down my back and i shiver from the wet wind twisting around me. I start to reliaze i am lost as i make my way down a dingy street, lit mostly from a disgusting street lamp. It figures. Eliza's directions to this townhouse are riduclously scrowled on a soggy napkin and doused in jam. I wish i hadnt left home. How badly i need it now that the streets begin to look more and more harsh.
I pass by an old begger who looks me over with a scared eye. The closest shop i can see is an old Mistic's, but considering that there is noone else around, i scurry in from the rain. The curtain of beads slaps my cheeks as i walk inside the dusty old shop. Its quite a tragedy of a place. A long bookcase takes up half the room, crowded with potions and exlisers, books and papers. The only light is from a dust covered candle apon a wobly wooden table able to stay up purely by magic. I laugh at this and the rouse of the infamous crystal ball hallmark to phoneys and cheats.
"Hello?" i call.
"One moment, child." a strangled voice calls from the ajoining room. I walk closer to the voice.
"i am in need of some direction. You couldnt happen to know where," i struggle to read from the drenched napkin. "East Baker Street is?"
"One moment, child" the voice repeats.
"Fan-bloodly-tastic" i sigh to myself as i sit down in a dusty chair in the cornor of the room beside the large table holding tarot cards and other non-senseical traits of the occult. I peer into the sadist looking mask in the cornor.
"why hello my child" the seer steps from behind a curtain, frightening me with a scream.
"Oh, i am sorry, didnt mean to give you a scare" she smiles a ragged, yet friendly smile. She reminds me of a Gyspy or at least what i had read of them in books. She seems to be of Russian descent, possibly an imagrant after the war. Her garments are old and torn with bright colors casacading down her, making her appear as large as a tent. Its almost comical, if i wasnt so irratated.
"Now, let me see." she scans over me. "you are not from around her miss, you are lost" she says in antuitive voice.
"really now?" i say sarcasticly. My irrritation is growing. Its blantantly clear that i am not from around here in my black lace and finery. My costly attire is merely for tonights festivities, though for usually i am nothing of the sorts, but still i am annoyed. I am not crawling in either soot or filth so obviously cheap side is not my home, i think snobbishly.
"im looking for east baker street?" i question
"yes, but your soul is searching for much more" she meditates over her crystal ball.
"alright lady, ill give you 5 pounds if you will just tell me the damn way to East Baker" i say in a sweet voice.
"fine, two streets over, one block up then when you've come to Farmore, take a left" she says in a defeaded voice that holds none of her mystic dlect she used before.
"thank you" i answer, tosing her the note.
I am about to leave when something in the cornor of the room catches my eye. A metal star is hanging above other trinkets, spinning aimlessly.
"where did you get this?" i ask her.
"i could tell you..." she humms with her eyes closed.
"fine." i sigh and hand her another pound. She opens one eye to her hand and then back to me. I roll my eyes as i slap another note in her hand.
"its the Star of Power." she says plainly, stuffing the money in her shirt. "its the embleme of all true Tempuses." she says simply.
"Tempuses?" i lean forward
"Travelers of Time, and whatnot. Legends say that they were the keepers of time, but so many abused it, it was banished from them, and instead, time became their masters." she said in her seer's voice. "a 'ho load a crap" she laughs in her cockney tone.
"do you have anything else on these...Tempuses?" i say, trying to seem uninterested.
"lit'le miss cri'ic is questionin?" she smiled. I hand her another note in an angry mannor, taking her a moment to recover.
"no need fo' violence, miss. Here. take a look at this" she says quietly and hands me a ragged old book with a dusty paster frount. Writen in an elegant scroll the words 'Custodis A Tempus Temporis' jump to my eyes. My languages had always been a bit rusty, but i assumed it to be Latin, and will have it translated for me.
"how much?" i say swiftaly.
"madame Loure, can not ask a price on this book, it of too much vaule!" she shouts, and goes to take the book back.
quickly place the remanant of my wallet on her table. " 'ave a nice day!" she shooshed me away with her cockney accent and began to count her profit. I hurry out the store, my book in hand. On the cover of the ancient cover is the same Star. Each edge tiped in gold and a single eye stares at me from the middle of the symbol, a cresent moon in its iris. The Star of Power. I reach for my father's necklace. The embleme twirls in my hands as i wonder down the street following the thief's directions. I had always wondered about my trinklet of old. Father had given it to me before he had died last year. Mother would have a stroke had she known i still wore it. She had locked it away the moment she saw it on my neck. Before heading off to London last month, i stole it back from her jewerly case with much trouble. she treated it as if it were percious, locked in her case, seperate from every other charm. Father had worn it since he was little. I remeber an old photograph, one of the oldest i had ever seen, of my father in Egypt, the bulky star about his neck. His brother had one just alike, only it was not so grand and without the cresent moon. I had always admired it on him, begging him for a chance to wear it as i was yougner. He had always told me that someday i could, but never did. The cold metal stung my neck each time it hung there. i had only begun to wear it this week from grief, but hid it under my coat. The sparkling moon on the necklace shone so brightly i doubt mother would be unable to notice without it, though she never truely watched me for more than a second, her eyes always finding something more attractive. I knew that it was because of my father. I looked so much like him, i knew it hurt her. My wild red hair, always cut in the fashionable length, thought the curls made this almost impossible not to resemble him. My eyes were of a strange shade of teal that would lighten sometime to a starling shade of tourquoise or even lime. It hurt my mother to look into the eyes that she knew so well as my father's. She hadnt always been the social-climbing shell of a woman she was now. I refer to her merely as New Mother now. For Old Mother would certainly have never chaistesed my spirited adventerous hunger. She was a historian who traveled through Egypt and China and other worlds outside England. She and my father would spend months from home on digs or excursions. When i was born she no longer traveled and instead became the elegant parlor owner, selling her unwanted treasures of foreign lands, always keeping the best for herself. Naturly, quite a handsome fortune was aquired through this and until my father's death, it had been one of my most favorite places to spend time, lounging about her shop of mysteries.

I turned the cornor to the park to cut through to East Baker, now fimialar where i was, in the more sophisticated side of town. It was bad enough that i was alone on the streets of London to let alone be in cheap side. Mother would surely be paniced out of her mind if she knew. I walked under a low arch way of brick when i dropped my bag and the book tumbled out, making a paper fall from the back pages. I bent to collect my things when the paper made me stop. On it was a map of old British India. I sighed heavily wishing that i could be traveling throught the marketplace of the lovely British colonies, seeking the adventure in the India sellers. A man on a bycicle approaches me, making me moved to the side.
I suddenly felt a heavy tug on my chest. I opened my cloak in time to see the amulet glowing a perfectly bright golden light that blinded me, i screamed in shock and went to rip it off. I was instantly being dragged through a spinning hall of light, and closed my eyes, about to be sick. I landed on the ground with a hard thud. Around me noises that i was certain was not the London park echoed through my mind. I opened my eyes, rubbing my head.
"Cerean?!" i heard called above me. My eyes focused on a rather scared looking woman. She had the darkest tan skin with deep eyes. A sari immediatly made me recognize her as Indian. I looked in a panic about me. Others that resembled her were crowded around me. The sky was a harsh grey like you only see in dreams, with clouds running past the earth in a hurry to escape the storm. I was in a damp street that was the most humid place i had ever imagined. I breathed in the dusty wet air in large gasps. I was in an Indian marketplace! stands lined the crowded, narrowed street. Artisans bardered and yelled to passerby, claiming the most exotic fruit or the most durable fabric. I spun around me in a horror filled extasty. I had to be dreaming.
"Cerean?" the lady in the orange sari said again. "you are bleeding, my dear" she said, a bit squimish.
I felt to my head where pain immediatly flooded. I looked to my fingers to see blood coming from the right cornor of my forehead.
"so sorry! so sorry!" a scared old Indian man pleaded in broken English.
"what happened?  who are you? where am i?" i pleaded quickly
"oh dear!" the sari lady whispered, grabbing her throat in worry. "dear ms. Cerean, it is me, Kaje, your servant Kaje? you are in the marketplace when this urchin ran into you" she gave the man pleading before me a snasty scowl. he held up a large silver platter to show where my head hit the dish, denting in the cornor.
"so sorry. on way to master. most angry with me" he fumbled.
"its quite alright" i tried to get up. I suddenly remembered what had happened to me. i was in the london park. I clenched my throat at this realization and felt the amulet burning beneathe my hand. I looked down to see i was in clothes from the eighteen hundreds. A corset waas hugging tightly to my waist and a light gauze petticoat was drapped over me.
"what year is it?" i asked Kaje
"why 1860  My Cerean, we best take you home before your mother has after me!" she carfully tries to move me.
"what!" i shout. 1860! 1860! i breath heavily moving back from this unknown woman. I back into a rather unamused Indian gentleman.
"Cerean, darling, do come along." she reaches out a hand as i close my eyes.

I hear a whril-wind of chaous around me. i feel the pull that draggs me through the an imense light. My eyes fly open to the London park. Im under the brick bridge way, a single paper in my hands, the map of British India. I hand is still clunchted to the trinket and my bag and book are still in the same place that i left them.  The man on the bicycle is still moving past me. he gives me a wink as he passes. i feel as if i am about to break down. What just happened to me? It was obvious that it was only me who it effected and that no one else had witnessed the strange occurance. i bent down and collected my book and bag in a hurry, running to the cornor of East Baker to the townhouse where Eliza and my mother are waiting impatiently no doubt. I put my histaria in the back of my head and constantly remind myself that it was just that.


i try to appear as calm as possible, but Eliza notices my blank stare.

"Cerean, what ever is wrong?" she says, actually appearing guenineingly interested.
"oh nothing" i lie. "just a little occupied in thought"
"well you best get unoccupied! i need you to help me with the invitations" she scolds. I felt almost foolish for thinking her to be worried about me. "now, im thinking of inviting Martha Cutts." she nodds, writing down lists of names.
"Martha Cutts?" i ask skecpically. "you hate Martha Cutts. She called you a whore!" i remind her
"yes i know" she looks up to put on an evil grin. "i just want to see her face when she sees that i am getting married before her! and how georgeuos i look on my wedding day! ha! call me a whore"
"you did sleep with her boyfriend." i say under my breath and she glares at me. For some reason i just cant seem to tolerate Eliza today. My attention should be elsewhere, like why the bloodly hell i magically appeared in India over 100 years ago!
"Darling, where are you planning on fitting all these people!" John laughs, reaching over to examine Eliza's list. "for goodness sake it is only at the Dorshire. You can not except to fit more than 50 people in there!"
"50! but my dear, you know i would like a large wedding! this is not fair!" she whines, sticking her lip out in a childish mannor that is pure Eliza.
"you said that i could pick the place. this is my only part in this wedding, really, and Dorshire is where my parents got married." he frowned.
John was a very attractive person, not unlike Eliza. Both had light hair but John however had a most amazing smile and deep tanned skin while Eliza was a perfect ivory. Both were stubborn, but John was never a match for Eliza when it came to getting what she wanted. He was in for a most unfortuante marriage, I predict. She has him to do as she pleases, and that is never good for a proper marriage.
"oh! how marvouls!" my mother squeals, examining the flowers to be expected at the wedding.
"they are simply beautiful, arent they? John's mother is a florist and is taking care of the arrangements! how fortunate we are." she smiles.
It has only been a week since their engagment, but Eliza's lack of sleep has made almost all of the planning complete. I swear that she could be a most productive person had she given this spirit to other aspects of her life.


It is almost 12 before we finnally arrive home. I had purposely squashed the stress-induced histaritics that occured to me this afternoon and was now just longing to be in bed. A most tiring day had ended and i was quite ready to sleep. Now that my mother was back in london to help Eliza plan the wedding, Lord only knows why, she decided to stay with me. As if it was not enough to be in the same building as the bride-to-be's worrying and fits, i must now induldge my mother's worried stares and paniced arguments over my life.
The other day she sat down to read one of my short-stories that was published in the Journal. She became inraged apon seeing my use of Egypt as the setting and stormed off saying that Egypt or anywhere else besides London was a quite disreputable place and that i should keep clear of thinking of visiting such nonsense.
I layed in bed, twirling the mysterious necklace. It had glowed such a violent color. I wondered if maybe it was the cause of my illusion. I rubbed over the moon in the eye glaring at me. Had it not been so beautuiful, it would be seriously unnerving. the color flooded from the moon as i twirled it in the moonlight.
"tomorrow, i will research the book" i vowed to myself, though i doubted i would, either too scared to find out what i know i saw, or too busy from haveing to appease Eliza and mother.


It is the first time that i dream of him. A mysterious shadow rushes over me as i sleep. My father's voice calls to me. I awake with a start and all memory of the nightmare i had is gone besides one image. The star of power turning over and over again. I cant even remember falling asleep. I become determineded to find the book, convinced it had something to do with my nightmare.
I tear through my bag and pull out the old book. The dusty cover creates a wide scent of what i remember to be jasmine when i open it. My Father loved jasmine. My mother would keep it all around our home, saying that it reminded him of travels through Africa and Asia.
'Custodis A Tempus Temporis' I translate roughly to mean Keppers of Time, though for all i know it could mean The Janitor of the Temple. I curse myself for not taking Latin as my father had wished. He had pleaded with me to take it, but i was never any good with it, or any language for that matter. French was the only languagne i roughly understood, and my mother found this enough, since no proper young English lady should be without knowledge in French, though i doubt she would even approve of me traveling there.
The pages felt like lead as i turned them. To my shock it was in English and not Latin at all. I began to read, and the more i did, the less i understood. the front few pages were torn of a diary written by a man named Alexander Thron, placed randomly in the book. it must have belonged to him before Madade Foure stole it, no doubt.

"it has been a hiden secret for none to bear. The words contained in the Book Of Life record our exgistance as a myth. But we know what we are. Time is our masters now, but once, Once we were great. The Cresant Moon shall return to us. Once it doea the world will once again know our power! I can feel him. He would be great!"

the rest of it chilled me to the bone. He talked of finding the Cresant moon. My Father.

'Id tell you diary that we have found him, but we had been decived. He was an older man and not much great. He put up much resistance once he knew our purpose, but we found him. He had given away the Cresant Moon, given away his gifts. To whom we do not know, but most certainly will find out. The Tempust will not be hard to find once the power has been used. That magnitude of power will find us. Call to us. Live in us once we have discovered it. The Tempus will be useful if he still does not know the power. We can easily take it from him. I only hope that he has not yet discovered its glory or the Mastery of Tempus is to be ruined.'

The entry was the day my father died. November 12, 1950.
I examined the trinket around my neck. Father's talestment? it was the reason he was dead. No, not dead. Murdered. This Alexander Thron was among his murderers. The day he had died i was so foolishly obediant to him to go into town with my mother to shop. He had then given me the trinket and i was happy to do anything that he pleased. It was the first time i had ever been allowed to wear it. He said that it should be my gift for becoming a true woman for my 18th birthday. November 12, is no longer a day of celebration. Mother is constantly reminded of his death with every pressent she gives me now. My birthday was last week, the day i started wearing the amulet again.
I quickly put down the horrid pages of the diary and turned the heavy pages of the book til writing finally appeared.

'For all who travel, in with time, a burden lives when others die. Find a hope and hold it dear, for thoes strong enough, it shall appear'
now what the bloodly mess is that supposed to mean. I always hated cryptic messages. and i seemed that that was all i was going to recieve with this book.

'Find the place inside your heart, that is where to begin, and where to start. The Star of Power shines with magic from within, lights the way and becomes your beacon. Do not faulter from your path, or noman lands is of your wrath"
even more than cryptic messages, i despised ryhnme.
As i read on, it became more clear of the rules.
To travel, i merely had to hold the talestment and think of where i wanted to be. Then i would be there. Only the most powerful could travel actually through time. The Cresant Moon. The true keeper of time. It was my father's burden and now mine. Others of the occult were our slaves of time, forced to bid us as true travelers. Others could move through time only once we had. That explains why they wanted my father so badly. If he had stopped time traveling, so too did they. I shivered as i continued on, till morning light poured in the window. I had learned the symbols of the Power. The Protectivers of the Tempus were our guardians. In times of old, once we had left our bodies behind, for only the Cresant moon could control the current time, the Protectors would watch over our bodies til we returned to them. Then for the High Power, they were guards of protection from harm, for once dead in the other relams, dead forever, and for time to come. I was using the pural. I didnt honestly think i was part of this. I felt at odds wiether or not i was going crazy, believing in this supersition. It was positively barbaric and riduclous. My mother would certainly give me a quick slap to the face for believing such nonsense. yet i wondered if it were true. Was this how father had died? Why mother became so protective over me? why i wasnt allowed to wear the necklace? Why i could not mention my father's real name of Regonald Tempus? Mother had changed back to her maiden name of Shetlon and forced me to do the same. At first i thought it to be coldness and her way of grieving by not remembering, but was it for my protection? Could someone be out there searching for me? something? I had to know i wasnt crazy. i had to know it was real.
I stood up and paced back and forth. I knew that British India worked well enough, and it also proved that i could travel not only through space, but also time. I could hault time, if today was correct. I was The Cresant Moon, the Tempust.