Thomas Arthur Wellington George Carter seemed momentarily puzzled by Lucy's reaction, and his features contracted into a sort of frown, as he appeared to be considering something for several seconds. Eventually, he spoke again.

"You don't seem worried that I'm a ghost," he said. "Perhaps you don't really believe me?" Lucy shook her head and grinned.

"No, I believe you - I think," she replied. "That may just have been some sort of trick you just did, but if it was, it was a really good one. No, I reckon you're a ghost, if that's what you say - and no, I'm not scared ... ghosts can't hurt living people, can they?"

"No, not as such," Thomas agreed. "But we move about in a strange sort of world - sort of between worlds, you might say, and we see all sorts of strange and sometimes scary things."

"What sort of things?" Lucy asked, suddenly even more interested. Thomas looked at her carefully, again waiting for several seconds before speaking.

"Well," he began again, at last, "I'm not sure about other ghosts, but I can travel to different times and see things as they were happening back then, whenever."

"Wow, that's really cool!" Lucy enthused. "You mean like the Romans and stuff - we did them in school about a year ago - and the Vikings." Thomas shook his head, slowly.

"No, not the Romans or Vikings," he said, "at least, I don't think so, at least not so far. I seem to be able just to go backwards and forwards between 1815 and nowadays - that was the year I was born, if you remember what I said just now?"

"Well, that's still nearly two hundred years," Lucy pointed out, only mildly disappointed at his admission. "That's a whole lot of history and a very long time, after all."

"Yes," Thomas agreed. "And there has been an awful lot gone on in that time, and not just here in England."

"You mean you can go into the past in other countries, as well?" Lucy really was impressed now, even moreso than before. "Have you been exploring in Africa, and places like that?"

"I've been to Africa, yes," Thomas said. "And India, and America. I was on a big ship called the Titanic, sailing across the Atlantic. Have you heard of it - the Titanic, I mean, not the Atlantic." Lucy gave him a sort of suffering smile.

"Of course I've heard of it," she said. "It sank, didn't it? We saw the film on DVD - it hit a dirty great iceberg and lots of the passengers and crew were drowned, or frozen in the cold water. It was all very sad, but then dad said to remember that they were only actors."

"Not back in 1912 they weren't," Thomas said, sombrely. "They were real people, and yes, it was indeed very sad. I tried to warn them, but there were only two people who could see and hear me. One woman almost fainted and then this other chap told me I was mad, or a trickster."

"He didn't believe your disappearing trick then?" Lucy said. "Couldn't anybody else see you, then? None of the crew, or maybe the captain?" Thomas shook his head.

"Well, I didn't try every single person on board, but it's always the same. I go back again now and then," he explained, "just to see if it might be different that time, but then it's not, because it's always the same time, no matter how long I wait before trying again. It seems nobody can change history, you see."

"Yes, I think so," Lucy said, pursing her lips and thinking. "Probably a good thing, I suppose," she continued. "I mean, all those people who died back then would upset things today, supposing you had managed to save them, I mean.

"They would have had children, and those children would have had children, and there would be all sorts of different people about in the world who weren't supposed to have been there. I reckon that could get pretty confusing."

"That's what this professor told me, near enough," Thomas agreed. "I met him in Hyde Park, in London. He was sitting there, just reading some book on really complicated mathematics stuff and he looked up and saw me. Somehow he seemed to guess what I was before I had chance to tell him.

"He was an odd cove, but decent enough, was Albert. He tried to explain a lot of things to me, but some of it was beyond me. Sometimes I go back to see him again, but I can't always find where he is - or was. See what I mean, Lucy - it'a all very complicated."

"Must be good fun, though," Lucy said. "I wish I could travel about like that." Thomas looked at her in silence, in another of his long pauses, and suddenly Lucy realised what was going through his mind.

"I could, couldn't I?" she almost shouted. "You could show me, or take me with you!" Thomas held out one hand, in a sort of "stop" signal.

"Yes, from what Albert said the last time, I think you could, but I've never tried it with anyone before, so it could be dangerous. Although he did say that any danger would be psychological - in the mind, that is - because it wouldn't be your actual body that travelled, any more than this is my actual body.

"The thing is, I don't know if it would work. I've never tried it with anyone else, because I've only been able to talk to one other member of our family, and that was your great grandmother Jenny, way back during the second war against Germany. She was sort of interested, but a bit scared and before we could try it, there was a big explosion and she was knocked unconscious.

"She was in hospital for a long time, and when she came round again she couldn't see me, at least, not properly. She knew I was there all right, but she kept saying how it was all just in her imagination and that the bomb had made her batty, which was more or less what her family and friends were telling her."

"That's a terrible shame," Lucy said, "I never knew her, because she died when I was just a tiny baby, but I know mum sometimes says how her gran was a bit loopy and kept hearing voices. That was you, I suppose?" Thomas nodded.

"Yes, but she could also hear other ghosts after she came out of hospital, and she could sort of see some of them, too. But I couldn't touch her any more and she just saw me as a sort of misty figure." He held out his hand, palm uppermost. "See if you can touch me," he invited, quietly. Lucy stood very still, staring hard at the slightly tanned hand, with its pinkish palm and then, very slowly, she reached out.

"Wow, yes!" she exclaimed. "You feel real enough. A bit cool - coldish - though. How do I feel to you?"

"Quite normal," Thomas said. "The way people used to feel when I was alive." HIs fingers closed gently around her much smaller hand, and he looked at her with a serious expression. "Do you want to try it?" He didn't say try "what", but Lucy knew exactly what he meant. Taking in a deep breath, she nodded - and then suddenly the air around her started to buzz like there was a huge swarm of bees in the garden, and the light went all bright and swirly ...

Eventually, after what seemed like simply ages, the buzzing sound began to fade, slowly at first, but then suddenly stopping, with a sort of soft 'pop' sound. At the same time, the light went from swirly to misty and then, as the noise popped to a stop, suddenly cleared to reveal a long narrow lane, bordered with a high hedge on each side and with a narrow grass verge on the left as they stood looking into the distance.

"Well, we've certainly come somewhere," Lucy said, quietly, looking around for any signs of life, but apart from a pair of dark coloured birds circling high overhead, they seemed to be alone. "The thing is," she added, "where is "somewhere" and, maybe even more importantly when is it - I mean this place." She looked up at her ancestor, who seemed to be concentrating hard. "Do you know what year this is?"

"Only roughly," said Thomas. "Very roughly, actually - we need to find a town or village and see if there is a newspaper we can get a peek at." He turned slowly, and looked back down the lane behind them, but it was as empty as the way ahead. "Now," he said, "if I had a coin, we could toss for which way to go, 'cause I don't reckon it'll make that much difference."

"I mean, the nearest village could be a lot closer one way than the other, but as we don't know which way, we just have to pick one and start walking, because we sure as eggs aren't going to find any newspapers, or anything interesting to see, not if we just stand here dillying."

"That way, then," Lucy decided, pointing her finger in the direction in which they had originally found themselves facing. She took a couple of steps and then paused. "Don't suppose there are any horses around here we might borrow?" she suggested. Thomas looked down at her.

"Can you ride, then?" he asked. Lucy nodded.

"A bit," she said. "We stayed at this holiday farm place last summer and we rode ponies every day. It was good fun, though it did make my bottom a bit sore at first. But I'd rather risk a sore bottom than be walking for the next several hours."

"Well, we don't seem to have a choice," Thomas said. "I don't see any horses hereabouts and besides, I shouldn't be encouraging you to steal things like that."

"It wouldn't be stealing," Lucy reproved him, "not really. We could leave the horses at the nearest village and the owner would get them back eventually. Maybe I could write a note - would I be able to do that here?"

"Maybe," Thomas said, uncertainly. "But I'm not sure it would help, telling some farmer that his horses were borrowed by a ghost and the spirit of one of his ancestors. No, young lady," he continued, firmly, "we'll walk. It normally isn't too far - I usually just appear somewhere a bit quiet, maybe in case there is someone about who can see me, so it doesn't scare them half to death."

They set off along the lane, the surface of which was a mixture of packed mud and gravel, and Lucy wondered what it would be like after a heavy rainstorm. She asked Thomas, and he grinned down at her.

"Pretty horrible," he said. "Actually, the surface doesn't get quite as sticky as you might think, not if this is a lane that's been laid down properly, with plenty of this stony stuff in it, but the top does get very slippery. Later on, they started using tar and grit, but it was still a long time before these smaller lanes were sorted out."

After about fifteen minutes, the lane came to a junction with a much wider road and this time Lucy could see that the surface looked a lot more like the surfaces of a lot of the roads from her own time. She mentioned this to Thomas.

"It's like I said," he replied, "they started with the larger roads, the ones with the most traffic, and then eventually moved on to the smaller roads and lanes, but it was years and years before they got around to putting down proper surfaces on all the by-ways. But I'd say that this road here is sort of halfway between a main highway and something like that lane we've just come along.

"The fact that it's got a proper surface means that we could be anywhere between 1830 and 1850, but I'm only guessing at that. Different parts of the country took longer to sort out their roads than others - and we don't know where we are, do we?"

"Well, we're three miles from somewhere called Taddington," Lucy said, pointing towards the verge on the far side of the larger road, where a post supported three painted signs, each with shaped ends, like blunt arrows, one pointing back the way they had just come, saying that it was five and a half miles to Wheldon Green, one pointing left towards Taddington, and the third, pointing to the right, telling the world that this spot was nine miles from Petersfield.

"Petersfield is quite close to where I live," Lucy said. She turned slowly around, trying to see all the various ups and downs of the land around them, but there were clumps of trees and bushes that obscured the view in many directions, and she gave up after a very short time.

"We'll try Petersfield," Thomas decided. "It may be the furthest away, but there could be a small hamlet between here and there. It looks as though there was another sign board on that post, but it's either fallen off, or been ripped off. Lucy, who was already half way across the road, suddenly pointed to the long grass that formed the far verge.

"There it is," she said, running across and bending down over the length of painted wood. Carefully, she turned it over and then held it up, displaying the sign that was somewhat dirty and faded.

"It says that there's somewhere called Pacey Mill Bridge down that way." Lucy pointed in the direction of Petersfield, which is where the slightly pointed end of the sign she was holding suggested that it too should be pointing. "One and a half miles, I think," she added, peering closer still. "One and something, anyway." She stood up, dropping the sign back into the grass.

"It doesn't sound like a proper village name, though," Lucy mused, as they began walking again. "I mean, maybe it's just a mill owned by someone called Mister Pacey. I wonder whether it's a windmill or one of those water mill things - my gran's got a huge jigsaw puzzle of a watermill, but she's only ever done about half of it. It's been on the table in her spare room for simply ages."

"The mill may even be gone by now," Thomas said. "Around about this time there were more and more steam engines being made and although they weren't as cheap to run as something that relied on wind or water, they were far more powerful and the country millers found it harder to compete with them."

Such fears were ungrounded, however, because little more than a quarter of an hour later, they came around a bend in the road and saw the mill ahead of them, sitting on the bank of what was certainly a river, or very large stream, with a bridge across the water no more than thirty metres to the right, as Lucy and Thomas looked at the scene.

Further still to the right of the bridge was another building, two storeys high, with a tiled roof, to one side of which several lower buildings surrounded a cobbled yard area, in which was standing a cart, into the shafts of which two men were putting a horse. Another man was walking a horse towards one of the buildings and Lucy guessed it had to be some sort of stable yard.

In front of the larger building, as they drew closer, Lucy could see a sign swinging from a post, which had a picture of a tree painted on it and "The Elm Tree" carefully painted below it. On a bench outside the door of this inn, for that was what it clearly was, two elderly men sat, clutching large tankards, from which they were occasionally drinking what Lucy supposed was beer.

More interesting, though, was that to the other side of the inn, where a grassy area stretched down to the bank of the river, several tables and chairs had been set out, and five women were busily setting out trays and dishes of food, beneath a large banner, that was strung high above, between the top of the inn wall and one of several trees that ran along the river side of the grassy area.

Long before they had reached the gateway that led into this garden area, Lucy could clearly read the words that someone had evidently spent some time painting on the cloth of the banner: "Victoria Regina - God Save Our New Queen", they spelled out. Thomas also read them, out loud, but in a low voice.

"They're having a party in honour of the young Queen Victoria," he said to Lucy. "It's probably to celebrate her coronation, so this must be ..." he paused, his features creased into an expression of concentration. "Let's see," he said, eventually, "she became queen in 1837, but wasn't crowned until the following year, so we're almost certainly in 1838 right now."

From the direction of the mill, three men and two young children appeared, obviously making for the inn, whilst from the road beyond the river two carts had appeared, making a steady progress towards the bridge, with what looked like two families on board, the first with four children, the second with, as far as Lucy could make out, at least seven, ranging from two very small infants to a couple of boys who were nearly grown men now.

Behind them, from the direction in which Lucy and Thomas had just come, Lucy heard the sound of more hooves, and turning, she saw a large carriage, being drawn by four trotting horses, coming quickly up the road, carrying a well-dressed lady and gentleman in the front seat, and three equally well-dressed children in the back. The clothes in which all five were dressed were quite a contrast to the fairly plain and drab materials that everyone else seemed to be wearing.

"Looks like some of the local nobs," Thomas grunted. "That means nobility, but they may just be rich landowners and not real nobility at all. Mostly, they wouldn't come anywhere near a place like this, but they probably think they should put in an appearance, as it's such a special occasion."

"I'm beginning to feel hungry," said Lucy, eyeing the piles of food on the tables. "Do you think it would be all right if I had something from one of those plates? Nobody seems to be able to see us, and they've got masses of stuff to eat."

"True," Thomas agreed, "and yes, they've got plenty of food, but you can't just pick something up, even if you could, which I'm not sure about. They may not be able to see you, but if they saw a chunk of cake hanging in the air, that would certainly make them take notice!" Lucy sighed, and then another thought struck her.

"It must be close to tea time back at home," she said. "If mum comes down to the garden looking for me, she'll think I've gone off somewhere and then I'll be in real trouble. Maybe we should think about going back."

"There's plenty of time," Thomas replied, smiling. "If Albert was right, time we spend here is different from time in the real world - your real world, that is. My world is more or less anywhere I choose to be. Now, whilst this lot are starting their party, how about having a look around the mill over there, and see how they used to make the flour for their bread and cakes and stuff?"