A Trail Through Time

Cover of A Trail Through Time

**A Trail Through Time** is the fourth novel in the Chronicles of St Mary's. It tells the story of Max and Leon as they frantically jump up and down the timeline - and eventually make their way back to St Mary's - trying to avoid a heinous threat.

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

## Blurb

**Sometimes, surviving is all you have left.**

Max and Leon are safe at last. Or so they think.

Snatched from her own world and dumped into a new one, Max is soon running for her life. Again.

From a 17th-century Frost Fair to Ancient Egypt; from Pompeii to 8th-century Scandinavia; Max and Leon are pursued up and down the timeline, playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek, until finally they're forced to take refuge at St Mary's where a new danger awaits them.

Max's happily ever after is going to have to wait a while...

## Plot

Max has just taken a bath and sat down for breakfast when Leon gets a call from Dr Bairstow telling him that 'they're coming'. Without hesitation, Leon instructs Max to get some essentials together; Max grabs her red snake, the little Trojan horse, and her picture of her and Leon. She doesn't think about bringing some toast, something she later greatly regrets.

While on the run from what Leon explains is the Time Police, an organization formed in the future to combat wild time travelers, the duo visits several interesting points on the timeline. They first flee to a 17th-century Frost Fair held on the frozen Thames, but are quickly found and pursued by some Time Police officers. Max and Leon then jump to Ancient Egypt and witness the start of an important ceremony before the Time Police show up again. Leon almost slips down a ledge into a crocodile-filled part of the Nile, but Max is able to get him out with the help of two slaves. He's angry she didn't leave him to die and get herself to safety, but Max insists that living without him wouldn't be living at all.

Their next destination is [PLACE & PLOT].

Eventually, Leon realizes that the Time Police isn't following him or the pod, but rather Max; since she didn't die in her timeline, she's still got her tag, which creates an awkward situation since his Max had, in fact, died and thus wouldn't one anymore. Max comes up with a plan to convince the Time Police she's dead once again by going to Pompeii. She'd run around, be seen by the officers, hide, and get back into the pod. Meanwhile Leon would go to St Mary's to give the pod a thorough service and stock up on food and water. The first part of the plan goes as, well, planned, until Max spots a Time Police officer stuck under a burning building. She decides to rescue him and asks him his name; he tells her it's Officer Ellis.

Max and Leon reunite in the pod, which had been jumping back and forth across the weeks before and after Vesuvius' eruption, and jump to a nondescript place in 8th-century Scandinavia. [HELIOS?? HELLO?] After a shower and some much needed breakfast, Leon injects Max with some painkillers and gets ready to operate; he's going to attempt to remove her tag. During the very unpleasant procedure Max tells Leon a joke that is both sick and not funny at all, according to him. The whole thing is a failure as he can't find the tag even after cutting open her whole forearm. After a particularly bad dream the day afterwards, Max tells Leon about how she lost her Bear after she was abused by her father for the first time.

Max isn't getting any better, and Leon makes the wise decision to get her back to St Mary's. He does use precautions, landing inside the big transportation pod TB 2 to conceal Max from the Time Police. He gets a righteous bollocking from Helen, who indignantly tells him he cut open the wrong arm; the tracker is in the other, as it's always been. It's extracted, and Max is treated to an extended stay in TB 2 in her own personal Sick Bay. Not long after the tracker is extracted, word reaches Max about the arrival of the Time Police at St Mary's, and that they're looking for her. Leon tells Max to pretend not to be able to talk, then flees to Pompeii in his pod to get rid of the tracker.

Max's guard at St Mary's actual Sick Bay, to which she'd been moved, is none other than Ellis, the Time Police officer who she'd helped when he got stuck under a burning building in Pompeii. Instead of telling his boss, Colonel Albay, that Max can talk - he should know, he's heard her do it - he keeps his mouth shut. Colonel Albay interrogates Max, but she does exactly as Leon told her to. She keeps it up even when Isabella Barclay comes to talk to her, but hits a breaking point when she hears David Sands tell his mates he's going into town one day, and yells to him that he shouldn't. He listens to her and avoids the accident that would end his life in the original timeline. The sad news is that the Time Police - and everyone else for that matter - now know she can talk.

Max is put on trial for removing Joe, who is actually Helios, of course, from his own time and releasing him into the wild - well, the future. Mrs Partridge tells her she's going to be all right and that she should remember that she is Dr Maxwell. The point Mrs Partridge makes with that finally sinks in during the trial, when she's able to deny that she took Joe - well, Helios, really - from Troy because while this timeline's Max may have done so, our Max certainly didn't. She is exonerated from the charges laid against her and the Time Police is shunted from St Mary's. Thing is, they'll most certainly be back.

Now that her trial is over, all should be well for Max. It isn't. In this universe, she died six months ago, and everyone is rather apprehensive about her sudden reappearance at St Mary's as an historian. She is sent on an assignment with Peterson to London, 1383, to see how Geoffrey Chaucer was doing. Things go wrong immediately. Max and Peterson get into a vicious discussion in the middle of the street, and Max runs off; Peterson goes to find her, but is mugged in an alley and thumped harshly on the head. Since Max isn't authorized to enter - or, indeed, do anything with - the pod, she drags him to a hospital. Peterson, being unconscious, can't repent his sins and isn't admitted, but Max makes do with an old barn out back.

One long night on a flee-infested matrass later, Peterson has contracted the Black Plague. Max is visited daily by a monk who brings the duo food and drink while she takes it upon herself to nurse Peterson back to health. He has only one pustule, on his leg near his crotch, which she manages to cut open with a hot knife and treat as one would acne. Peterson miraculously survives the whole ordeal and Max doesn't contract the disease, and after a few days the duo is able to make it back to St Mary's. Max is accepted into the unit, and things are almost back to normal. Almost.

Leon comes back and is almost immediately sent away again on an assignment by Dr Bairstow; he is to shunt all the other Time Police from past and future St Mary's as well. A war is coming, and Dr Bairstow intends to win it. Or rather, fight like hell until the bitter end; all of St Mary's makes the necessary preparations. The unit is massively outnumbered by the Time Police, but do their best anyway; Max finds Izzie with a gun in Dr Bairstow's office, about to make the most of a dire situation. She distracts Izzie, who still shoots Dr Bairstow, and buys the director some time. In the Great Hall, the battle is pretty much done. Colonel Albay orders a surrender, which Dr Bairstow refuses.

The cavalry arrives - well, if the cavalry is a bunch of middle-aged St Mary's staff armed with condom-flour-bombs and a flare. The roof is raised, so to speak, and the battle is ultimately won by St Mary's. Colonel Albay risks his own life to end Max's, but is shot in the head by Time Police officer Ellis. Jenny Fields, Mr Ritter, Mr Weller, and Miss Esterhazy of St Mary's have perished in the battle, as well as four Time Police officers, and David Sands' lower left leg is seriously maimed. Izzie gets away in the carnage.

In the absence of Dr Bairstow, since he's recovering from a gunshot wound, Leon is made acting director. A meeting is held some time later, and Pinky is there, too, to abolish the Time Police. Pinky objects on the grounds that the organization must have been good for something, and Max agrees. The decision is made to reform the Time Police instead. Back in her room Max finds Bear - who Leon had salvaged specially for her - ripped open, stuffing gone, a knife stabbed through its body and hanging on the wall with a note from Barclay telling her she's next. Mrs Enderby sets about to repair the stuffed animal for Max, no questions asked.

In the aftermath, Max and Leon both tell each other that as long as they're together, they don't care where they are, and flip a coin to figure out if they'll stay at St Mary's or go live in Leon's flat in Rushford.

* Return Joe to a year after Troy's fall.
* Max goes to Pompeii to be seen by the Time Police. Max saves Time Officer Matthew Ellis.

## Dramatis Thingummy

* Dr Edward Bairstow - Director of St Mary's. Tall, authoritative. Early 50s. Holds together a volatile mix of technicians, historians, kitchen staff, ssecurity teams and the sometimes explosive Research and Development Section.
* Miss Rosie Lee - His PA. A nightmare.

### History Department

* Tim Peterson - Chief Operations Officer.
* Kalinda Black - Liaison Officer at Thirsk University.
* Mary Schiller - Historian.
* Greta Van Owen - Historian
* Mr Clerk - Historian.
* Paula Prentiss - Historian.

### Medical Section

* Dr Helen Foster - Does not play well with others.
* Nurse Diane Hunter - The object of Markham's affections.
* Turk - Officially a horse.
* Maxwell - Refugee. Lost. Bewildered.
* Chief Leon Farrell - Former Chief Technical Officer. Warrior. Hero.
* Mrs Partridge - Kleio, Muse of History. Former PA to Dr Bairstow. Where is she?
* Madam President - Judge, jury, and if things go badly, executioner.

### Security Section

* Major Ian Guthrie - Head of Security.
* Mr Markham - Security guard.
* Mr Randall - Security guard.
* Mr Evans - Security guard

### Research & Development

* Professor Andrew Rapson - Head of R & D. Crumpet igniter.
* Doctor Octavius Dowson - Librarian and Archivist

### IT Department

* Isabella Barclay - Head of IT
* Polly Perkins - IT Technician

### Others

* Mrs Theresa Mack - Kitchen Supremo. Revisiting her urban guerrilla skills.
* Mrs Mavis Enderby - Head of Wardrobe. Ditto with the skills.
* Mrs Shaw - Another one not to be trusted with a loaded condom.

### Villains

* Colonel Albay - Head of Time Police
* The Time Police - Bad news for everyone.