Chapter 1

The parcel felt delicate in her hand, as if a sudden jostle would turn the collection of letters into a heap of rotted paper. With one hand, she gingerly pulled the frayed satin ribbon to unloose the bow, she supported the letters with the other hand, like she would support a newborn baby’s head. Something inside her knew that this was an important moment, her stomach had that urgent feeling and her hands were shaking ever so slightly. Not that anyone else noticed the twelve year-old girl’s excitement, a garage sale is rarely a place for epiphanies. But that was exactly what Elizabeth Hanover felt she was having.

Elizabeth had come to 37 Cherry St. for the same reason everyone else had – to try to find something you never knew you needed for a cheap price. Her mother often took her garage-saleing on Saturday mornings – it was supposed to be a bonding time. Elizabeth didn’t particularly like bonding with her mother, but, on the other hand, shopping was always an enjoyable pastime, no matter the company. This garage sale was like all others, or so Elizabeth had thought. The house on Cherry St. was an old, two-storey, brick home. A –cookie-cutter suburb home, indistinguishable from probably thousands of others in the area surrounding the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Many years later, Elizabeth had tried to go back to find that house but had discovered the evil plan of 1980’s architects to make all houses look the same.

The sun shone harshly onto Elizabeth’s chestnut hair as she scanned the address on the first of the letters in her hand. It was written in the perfect script of the olden days, and was still quite visible, given the fact it appeared to be written in authentic brown ink. She opened the flap of the envelope and pulled out the small, folded piece of paper.

Dear Jane, June 17, 1893
Life continues on at a maddening pace as everyone prepares for dear Eliza's wedding.

Elizabeth was interrupted by her mother’s call: “Come on, Lizzie, I want to get to the street sale on Inverlochy before the 10 o’clock rush!”

“Hold on, Mom, I think I want to buy these!”

“What are they?” Elizabeth’s mother noticed the look on her daughter’s face and walked towards her. Elizabeth stepped into the shade of the large apple tree covering part of the driveway. “These are some old letters written to someone named Jane. I love them! Can I buy them?”
Her mother, impatient in the unseasonable June heat, agreed quickly, which was quite unusual. They settled upon a price, only a quarter, a good price for 1989. Elizabeth smiled to herself as she wrapped the rose ribbon back around the brown papers, and followed her mother’s brisk pace towards the car.

The airline blanket was unusually small and bristly, even compared to the low standards of regular airline blankets. Elizabeth tried unsuccessfully to make the small wool square cover her bare legs. “This is the last time I wear a skirt on the plane, I don’t care how Audrey Heburn it is, next time I’m wearing sweats.” This was part of a continuous inner dialogue that Elizabeth had been having with herself, that begun when she was about 11 and had not let up since. She had learned to accept the fact that she talked to herself, and made every effort to hide this character quirk from new acquaintances. Like, for instance, the cute Brit sitting next to her. He seemed to be more than comfortable with his corduroy trousers and soft sweater, Elizabeth had been watching him out of the corner of her eye, as he kicked off his loafers and switched the movie channel to the World News. Everything about him screamed “Cool British Dude” and Elizabeth had not yet gathered enough courage to even ask him to allow her out from her window seat into the aisle for a toilet run. No, that would be too much. For now, she just monitored her liquid intake, and tried to stay warm in the bitterly cold cabin.

Elizabeth’s discomfort was compounded by the fact that she was anxious, anxious to the point of feeling a good deal unsettled. Fortunately she was a seasoned traveller… “So why didn’t I know better than to wear a skirt!” …and had yet to experience any sort of queasiness while flying, or sailing, or driving, for that matter. And, unlike 97% of the population, Elizabeth found airplane food delicious, she, indeed, found the experience enjoyable. She had learned the secret long ago: The answer is always “Chicken.”

The remote control was conviently tucked away in the armrest, which Elizabeth wrestled with for a minute or two. Eventually gaining mastery, she flicked through the options on the screen on the back of the seat in front of her. The chick flick selections were tempting, but she was drawn, as always, to the “where are we now?” screen. There was just something about that little clip art icon of a plane, slowly traversing the gentle arc from wherever ‘here’ was, to wherever ‘there’ was supposed to be. On this trip, she was monitoring the white plane on its graceful path from Vancouver to London. “I wonder what happens when the plane crashes? Do they make the little plane fall from its path?” Elizabeth stared mindlessly at the screen, pondering her chances of death by plane crash. “Minite” she decided. Still, watching the entire western hemisphere be shrunk onto a foot long box was a lesson in perspective. That’s what I love about travelling, she expounded to herself: “There is a realization that we are small, because we finally understand that the world is huge.”

As she was thinking about her infinite smallness, she was surprised by a bright light that suddenly flashed through the pitch black darkness surrounding the plane. “This is it – I miscalculated my chances of dying in a plane crash- serves me right to die in one 5 minutes later!” Another flash broke through the darkness, but even Elizabeth’s paranoia couldn’t keep her from noticing that the flash was not a fire in Engine One, or a guided missile aiming for the cockpit. Instead, it was lightning. Only, it was unlike any lightning she had ever seen before. It consumed the whole sky, with the clouds below substituting for the earth she knew. This lightning seemed to have no start or end, it was a web of interconnected branches of brilliant light, covering the atmosphere. Elizabeth could hardly catch her breath, overwhelmed at this display of glory. Like any true church kid, her first reaction was the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Her internal dialogue was momentarily displaced by internal song – a spontaneous reaction to the majesty of God, displayed on a large scale.

All too soon, the lightning display in the heavens stopped. There was nothing to do now but go to sleep. As much as Elizabeth delighted in airline travel and on any other occasion would likely stay up all night watching movies, playing video games, and listening to the music magically emitted from her armrest; she knew sleep was a necessary distraction from airplane fun. All too soon this ‘purgatory’ period of travel would end, and she would have to officially step from one stage of her life to the next. She didn’t feel ready, and she knew sleep would perhaps make her ready, or at least help her forget her anxiety.

Cute British Dude jostled her elbow: “Fancy some breakfast?” He said in a heartbreakingly charming accent. “Oh, thank you” Elizabeth said, being careful not to look at him directly, for fear her breath was bad. The flight attendant leaned over to hand Elizabeth the ‘Brunch’ tray. She re-arranged her half-asleep legs and tried, unsuccessfully to make her hair lie flat. After a second, she gave up, the Audrey Hepburn allusion having been effectively dashed into the stubby, neutral carpet under her feet. Instead, she focused all her attention on breakfast, spreading the jam and clotted cream onto the raisin scone, she began to feel some excited ness coming out to play with her overwhelming anxiety. “However scary taking this next step of my life is, at least I’m going to England, where scones play an important part of daily life.”

She flicked the channel back to the progress screen. The little airplane was almost entirely covering the British Isles, which led Elizabeth to believe they were almost there. She had meant to do more soul searching and psychoanalysis during the flight, but had instead subconsciously spent the entire time trying to ignore the fact that this was the first step into an entirely new world.

She had packed up everything she owned that had meant something to her (mostly family mementos and souvenirs from travels) and it was all stored in a collection of mismatched bags in the hold of the plane. There was nothing left to tie her to Canada, this was indeed a full move, if she backed out she would have nothing to go home to, and in fact, no definite idea of where home was. So she was left with no other choice but to go forward with the kind of brazenness that only those with bridges burned can have. Oxford University was her future now, and she was sure she would find a home somewhere? Or would she? -“Maybe I’ll end up in some seedy flat with drug-addicts who won’t do dishes as housemates. Or maybe I’ll have to live in residence with the undergrads who think it’s fun to do evil pranks involving explosive objects. Or maybe I’ll be swindled into buying a cow pasture by some genuine looking country farmer who…” Her doomsday prophecies were cut short by the announcement of the flight attendant that the plane would be landing shortly. Elizabeth went through the usual routine: remote control back into the arm rest, seat up, tray table stored, purse under the seat in front of her, and, of course, seat belt fastened. There was no time to think now, she was just going to have to go for it, come what may.

She stuffed the chocolate bar wrapper into the garbage can quickly, glancing around to ensure that no one had seen her disposing of the evidence. “Yes, eating chocolate to relieve stress isn’t the healtiest choice, but it’s better than smoking, isn’t it? And I deserve it!” Someone on the other side of Elizabeth’s internal conversation was about to object to this logic, when Elizabeth was distracted by the presentation of a proverbial fork in the road. She had been following the path from the plane out into London, a complex path through customs, immigration, luggage, etc. She had been going on autopilot, her travelling skills meant she could probably do it in her sleep. But now she had hit her first bump. She had walked out into the arrivals hall, to find it almost deserted. There was no friendly face with a sign reading “Miss Elizabeth Hanover, New Oxford University Master’s Student.” Instead, there was just a few bored people sitting on rows of uncomfortable black mesh benches. She sighed to herself, and decided to wait before assuming the worst. She dragged her trolley over to the first empty bench and sat down to watch. Watching turned to waiting, which eventually turned to stewing. The small group that had been there to meet the other people on her flight had found their people and had moved on to the small worlds that they called home within the mass of London. Elizabeth was left alone, now, in the wee hours of a cold January morning.

“This is not that bad. This is NOT that bad. This is not THAT bad.” Elizabeth was having trouble convincing herself. It was way too late to try to call the school to find out what had happened, so she had two choices: find her way to Oxford herself and try to find a place to stay there, or sleep in the airport. At the moment, the airport seemed the much more attractive of the two options, because it involved the least amount of movement. In fact, all it would entail was digging out some toiletries and a sweater or two from her suitcase. “At least all my luggage is here, there – that’s a blessing that I can count. And, heh, another airport sleepover to add to my “Done” list…bonus!”

Thus having made up her mind on what to do… “It only took 4 hours…silly girl” Elizabeth went about the process of making her ‘room.’ From past experience, she knew that airport lounges are deceptively cold. So she unpacked two heavy sweaters to wear, a pair of sweat pants to put under her skirt, and her scarf to wrap around her head. She put her backpack under her head for a pillow and wedged her other bags around her, ideally so that if anyone tried to take them, she would feel the movement. She assembled the earplugs and eyemask she had from the airline ‘goody bag’ and settled into sleep.

It was not a very good night’s rest, her body kept telling her it was 1 pm and time for lunch, while her mind refused to shut down and continued to make mental checklists of what she would need to do first thing in the morning. The janitor was cleaning the floors around 4 am and bumped into the bag by her foot, which of course made her sit straight up, whip off her eyemask, and prepare to attack the perpetrator. (The Janitor only stared at her with a bored, empty, look. He had obviously woken up quite a few sleepy travellers over his career. She had the sneaking suspicion that he had done it for fun. Alas.)

Eventually, around 6 am, the airport began to fill with people, and Elizabeth felt it was an appropriate time to get up. She re-packed all her stuff, and managed the feat of getting her and all her stuff into the large washroom stall, and attempting to make herself look presentable, after almost 2 days without a shower. Begrudgingly accepting the results as “As good as its going to get”, Elizabeth manoeuvred out of the washroom towards the telephones. She dug the college’s number out of her purse, and dialled. “Hello?” “Oh, yes, my name is Elizabeth Hanover, and I’m a new student at Magdalen College. Well, I’ve just flew in from Canada, and there was no one here to meet me. I was wondering if I misunderstood the arrangements we had made, or if there was some problem.” Elizabeth tried to breathe deeply and measure her tones. This was only a small bump in the road, and she could certainly handle it without getting upset, couldn’t she?

“Oh, yes, Ms. Hanover. We have been expecting your arrival, and Charles Edward, the president of the JCR was supposed to meet you at the airport. So I am to understand that he was not present?”

Elizabeth was still trying not to laugh at the name ‘Charles Edward’ and was frantically wracking her brainful of British trivia for what a ‘JCR’ was, when she realized she was supposed to respond. “No, I mean, well, I don’t think so. I mean, I didn’t see him, unless he was in the wrong spot. Or maybe I was in the wrong spot. Or maybe…” Elizabeth stopped her sentence, realizing she sounded much more like a flustered high school student than a capable master’s candidate. She took a deep breath. “It isn’t a problem though, I can just take a bus to Oxford and find my way to the college. I visited Oxford for a day when I was travelling across England a few years ago. I am familiar enough to find my way there with no problem.” There, Elizabeth had gotten control of her nerves: “Good job, way to go” she gave herself a little pep talk. The woman on the other end of the line seemed a little less convinced of Elizabeth’s competence: “You’re sure you can find your way here? The transportation systems and signs are a little bit more subtle than the ones you find in the States.” Elizabeth could handle the questioning of her capabilities, but she drew the line at being mistaken for an American. “I assure you, Ms…? “Brown” “Ms. Brown, that I have travelled all throughout the subtle transportation systems of Europe, and they are different, but not harder than the systems we have in Canada.” Elizabeth realized insulting Ms. Brown, whoever she was, was not the right foot to start off on for her new life. She quickly backed down. “But thank you for your concern, I do admit I was slightly overwhelmed with the number of choices for buses to Oxford. Which one would you suggest?” Having been put back into the superior role in the conversation, Ms. Brown was more than amiable. She helped Elizabeth figure out the best way to get to Oxford, and set up a meeting time and place when someone from the college, ideally that JCR president with two names, would meet her.

The bus ride was uneventful. Her body was now saying it was 3 am, and was demanding sleep. Elizabeth took a slight risk in assuming that Oxford was the last stop on the bus, and then succumbed to the deep sleep that only the truly jet-lagged can experience.

She was awoken by a rough bump to her shoulder, as someone with a large bag over the shoulder knocked their way down the aisle of the bus like an elephant. She rubbed her eyes and tried to get her brain working. It was like that little gerbil running around on the metal wheel had decided to take a break. She took another minute, and the gerbil started running, although still not quite at full speed.

To the right of the bus was a non-descript British building, in front of it was a coffee shop, and more generic buildings were on the left. She could be at one of hundreds of medium-sized British town’s bus stops. She stumbled to the front to ask the driver. “We’re just about to leave Oxford, Miss, and head towards Woodstock.” She internally thanked that man who bumped her with his bag; she had very nearly slept through her stop.

After a great struggle, Elizabeth finally came out as champion over her pile of luggage. She had it out of the bus’ hold, and in a neat mountain against the coffee shop wall. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she pondered two mysteries. First, “Why on earth is it so hot in January?” And second: “Where IS he?”

The answers to both questions seemed to fall into the realm of the hypothetical and immediately unimportant. It was hot, and there was no one there to pick her up. These were the facts, she would have to deal with them. This was her conclusion after a 15 minute inner conversation. Mustering up her stamina, she started the painful process of lugging all her stuff towards the taxi stand. The cabbie helped her throw everything into the very British cab, and soon she was on her way to Magdalen College. She had little chance to enjoy seeing Oxford again, instead, she was feeling more anxious than ever, because she had no idea which door to knock on, who would meet her, or how she would get all her stuff out of the cab into the school, without making a fool out of herself. One of the foremost of her worries was the fact that she looked exactly how she felt: like a very sweaty, two day dirty, jet-lagged mess. Not the kind of first impression she had in mind. She decided to blame that silly two-named boy from the ‘VCR’ (“No, that’s not right!”) for deserting her at the airport.

All too soon, the taxi pulled up at the front entrance of Magdalen, right along the busy Corn Market St. “Great” thought Elizabeth, “now everyone in all of Oxford will get to see the sweaty, gross Canadian try to lug all her earthly possessions up the walk to Magdalen.” There was simply no other option, so Elizabeth began the slow process. The cabbie had thrown all the bags on the sidewalk and after being paid what seemed an exorbitant sum for a 5 minute cab ride, had sped off. Elizabeth assed the situation and made a plan. One at a time, she would carry each suitcase making a point to keep an eye on the piles. She methodically started, and just as she finished lugging the final bag up to the door, the porter stepped out with an impartial “Can I help you?” Elizabeth nearly laughed out loud. She definitely needed help, but more than he could give! She gave him her name, and he went back into the office to make a call. She stopped to survey her surroundings.

Magdalen College was rightly famous among the register of Oxford Colleges. Like most colleges, it had its fair share of famous alum, like C.S. Lewis and Oscar Wilde, but it was also famous for its beauty and especially it’s deer park. Of course, Elizabeth couldn’t see the deer park. All she could see was the dark wooden low-hanging ceiling of the foyer, and a glimpse into the sunny green courtyard within. She felt a surge within her. She had finally made it. The moment she had been waiting for was finally her, she was about to become an Oxford student. A grin spread across her face.

“Ms. Brown is expecting you” said the porter, with the tiniest of smiles, “come this way please.” Elizabeth was readying herself for the ordeal, when she heard the best news she had heard in two days: “You may leave your luggage here, if you like.”