No Time Like The Past

Cover of No Time Like The Past

**No Time Like The Past** is the fifth novel in the Chronicles of St Mary's. It tells the story of Max and the rest of St Mary's as they whizz up and down the timeline

**This page is chock-full of spoilers for the Chronicles of St Mary's. Proceed with caution.**

## Blurb

**A fete worse than death.**

The St Mary's Institute of Historical Research has finally recovered from its wounds and it's business as usual for those rascals in the History Department.

From being trapped in the Great Fire of London to an unfortunately timed comfort break at Thermopylae, which leaves the fate of the western world hanging in the balance, Max must struggle to get History back on track.

But first, they must get through the St Mary's Fete - which is sure to end badly for everyone.

Only one thing is certain, life at St Mary's is never dull.

## Plot

After rebuilding St Mary's, it's business as usual for everyone - well, except for Markham. He walks past a window one day and sees someone fall past it; Max and Peterson decide that it's a ghost. All three of them team up to investigate, and Max cashes in her Jump of Choice-card with Dr Bairstow to go to St Mary's, 1643. The priory is in possession of the Laceys and their two sons, it's the middle of the British Civil War, a fire breaks out that kills two or three family members, one of the sons is spotted on the roof... The best candidate for the birth of a ghost, if you will. Or the death of a contemporary. Whichever one you prefer.

They arrive at the priory with bells on, slip into the main building, and to their surprise, the history books are wrong on this instance. Lady Lacey and her two sons awaken on the fateful morning to the arrival of Captain Lacey, Lady Lacey's brother in law. He warns her of his brother's imminent return from his post in the army, and that he's found out about them. Max notes that the elder son looks suspiciously much like Captain Lacey; Lady Lacey must've had an affair with him.

Lord [IS HE A LORD?] Lacey arrives with murder on his mind and follows his wife and two kids - sorry, his own and his brother's kid - to the library, where Lady Lacey manages to escape into a priest hole with her elder son while the younger one runs, presumably, to the roof, followed by Markham. Lord Lacey sets fire to the library, after which Max and Peterson fight off some thugs in the Great Hall. The whole affair culminates in Markham jumping off the roof himself to fulfil the role of the ghost, Max rescuing the younger son, and Peterson thumping Lord Lacey unconscious. Lady and Captain Lacey and their son disappear at Max's insistence, leaving the youngest Lacey to inherit the priory as was recorded in the history books. Markham miraculously survives his jump off the roof.

Nurse Hunter righteously guilt-trips Max into thinking about the ones left behind when she and her team go off hurting themselves somewhere along the timeline, after which Max plans a 'boring' jump to the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, 1851. It's a brilliant success, and almost nothing goes wrong. Almost, but not nothing: during their afternoon tea, Max and Sands spot an older Clive Ronan looking murderously at a younger Dr Bairstow and Annie Bessant, who are also on an assignment at the Great Exhibition, though look more interested in each other than the wonders of the modern world. Max joins Ronan at his table and talks to him long enough for Sands to taser him, saving Dr Bairstow and Annie, and the entire timeline, too.

Up next is another salvage operation, this time to Old St Paul's cathedral during the Great Fire of London, 3 September 1666. Since Max had already made a jump to that exact date, to Mauritius to save some dodos, she can't join Van Owen, Schiller, Clerk, Sands, Peterson, Guthrie, Leon, Dr Foster, Professor Rapson, and the rest. Markham doesn't go, either. When the team doesn't show up at the Estimated Time of Arrival, Dr Bairstow gives Max and Markham one hour on 3 September 1666 to find and save them.

Max and Markham find the team stuck in the cathedral and missing Schiller, but eventually manages to rescue the remaining members from the burning building. The duo almost doesn't make it back to their pod in time, and as instructed by Dr Bairstow, Markham warns Max he is to shoot her dead if they don't make it. Their landing in Hawking Hangar is less than stellar. The rest of the team makes it back some days later, having buried their treasures somewhere on the grounds of St Mary's, 1643. Thirsk is invited to join in the discovery, but it does not go as planned. The unit digs up the chest and, horrified, finds the decayed remains of Mary Schiller inside instead of their treasures, complete with a note signed by Ronan and Izzie.

To cheer up the unit after Schiller's memorial service, planning resumes for St Mary's Open Day. R&D builds a raft to participate in a race with Thirsk on the lake, there's a local farmers' market, a bouncy castle, some adorable donkeys, a sidesaddle demonstration, a medieval sword fighting demonstration... and an angry, vengeful Izzie Barclay. She takes Max to a discreet part of St Mary's grounds, tells her she's her sister on her father's side, and shoots her in the back; just in time, Van Owen arrives and empties an entire magazine into Izzie, both to save Max and as revenge for her killing of her lover, Schiller.

Max wakes up in Sick Bay, where Leon tells her that Izzie lied about being her sister. Max goes berserk, wrecking everything within her reach, and is taken to an isolation ward by Leon to calm down and take some time to sleep it all off. Some time later, Van Owen pays her a visit and tells her she's leaving. Once again, Max plans a relatively safe salvage operation to counter all the violence the unit has had to go through, this time to the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence, 7 February 1497. She and her team make the jump and save three Botticelli's from being burned at the bonfire, but on her way back to the pod, Max can't stop herself from helping a fellow redhead from humiliation. She is stoned by a bunch of children when Leon arrives to rescue her, then falls backwards through a catch in the wall and takes Leon with her. In all the chaos, one of them proposes, and the other accepts.

After being saved from the stoning kids by their colleagues, Leon jumps to the second location while Max and Peterson go back to St Mary's. Peterson proposes a job-swap to Max since Dr Bairstow wants to send her away to Thirsk for a year, which she reluctantly accepts. As her wedding present, Peterson arranges for a jump to the Battle of Thermopylae, 480 BC. Markham goes with them and while squatting it behind a boulder unknowingly thumps Ephialtes unconscious with a rock. Peterson takes on the responsibility of guiding the Persians around the Spartan army for an ambush, while Markham takes on the responsibility of guiding Peterson and keeping him on the right track. Max stays with the unconscious Ephialtes; some time before the final battle, she is seemingly found by some Spartan scouts. One of them takes a wee all over her head and shoulders while standing on her hand, but they don't notice her.

Once Markham and Peterson, although a bit battered and slightly shattered, return to the pod, Markham fishes a bottle of wine from his backpack and the three of them toast to Max's upcoming wedding to Leon. She has trouble planning the whole ordeal, but thankfully that's all taken from her quivering hands by Kal and Helen. Mrs Enderby fixes her a beautiful gold dress, Mr Strong is in charge of the flowers, and she even racks up the courage to ask Dr Bairstow to give her away during the ceremony. Sometime during the reception, Max and Leon slip away in Dr Bairstow's Bentley, with Max behind the wheel. Leon thoroughly distracts her, and for the second time in its life the Bentley hits a tree. Just as the newlyweds are about to refresh their memories of the first time the Bentley was in this position, the police arrive.

Against the backdrop of the low loader adorned with lights, music, and the rest of the wedding party singing Dancing Queen, Guthrie hands them a set of car keys and a torch, and Max and Leon hasten away into the night.

## Dramatis Thingummy

* Dr Edward Bairstow - Director of the Institute of Historical Research at St Mary's Priory. Any resemblance to a bad-tempered bird of prey is not coincidental.
* Mrs Partridge - PA to the Director and Kleio, daughter of Zeus, Muse of History. Critical and unforgiving. Probably easier to find the source of the Nile than any evidence of a sense of humor.
* Maxwell - Chief Operations Officer. Responsible for re-establishing St Mary's after its exiting summer last year, and for organising the infamous Open Day this year.
* Leon Farrell - Chief Technical Officer. A man of extraordinary patience and restraint - he says.
* Major Ian Guthrie - Head of the Security. A man of extraordinary etc. - he says.
* Mr Dieter - Second Chief Technical Officer. Because you can't have too much of a good thing - he says.
* Dr Tim Peterson - Chief Training Officer in search of someone to train. The sensible one - he says.
* Mr Markham - Guthrie's number two. In every sense of the phrase. Disaster magnet and mostly indestructible.
* Dr Helen Foster - Chief Medical Officer. The only medical officer, actually. Not to be trusted with ten feet of rubber tubing and a jug of warm water.
* Nurse Diane Hunter - Chief Nurse and recipient of Mr Markham's affections.
* Professor Andrew Rapson - Head of Research and Development. Very unreliable with anything more flammable than a wet tissue.
* Doctor Octavius Dowson - Librarian and Archivist. Elderly and irascible You wouldn't want to turn your back on either of these two.
* Mrs Theresa Mack - Kitchen Supremo and former Urban guerrilla.
* Mrs Mavis Enderby - Head of Wardrobe.
* Mrs Shaw - PA to the Chief Training Officer. Highly valued for her cakes and biscuits. Not that historians are in any way shallow or easily bribed...
* Rosie Lee - Supposedly PA to the Chief Operations Officer, but does pretty much as she pleases.
* Mary Schiller - Senior Historian.
* Greta Van Owen - Senior Historian

### History Department

* Mr Clerk
* Miss Prentiss
* Mr Roberts
* Mr Sands
* Tom Bashford & Elspeth Grey - Recently rescued historians. Currently at Thirsk University, acclimatising themselves after a ten-year absence.

### Chancellor and Members of the Senior Faculty

* University of Thirsk - Nominal employers and purse-holders.
* Dr Kalinda Black - St Mary's liaison Officer with Thirsk University.
* Professor Penrose - Retired physicist and appointed boat designer.
* SPOHB - Society for the Protection of Historical Buildings. The provisional wing of English Heritage.

### Villains

* Clive Ronan - Renegade historian and bad guy.
* Isabella Barclay - Professional bitch and bad girl.