Later in the evening, she warily made her way to Alistar’s study – he’d scolded her after all, even if he hadn’t brought down the full force of what he could do. She’d asked Rilla if she would come, more for protection than anything else, but she had homework to do for Willow House, and Ms Williams – Elisabeth – monitored homework like a hawk.

Elvie knocked on Alistar’s partially open door. Unlike Rilla and Elvie, who used one room, Callum and Alistar had selected their sleeping quarters elsewhere and then occupied several bigger rooms for study. He intended to use the study as his classroom.

‘Come in!’ he yelled. ‘Great, you’re on time – take a seat on the lovely learning couch.’

Elvie nodded sat opposite Alistar, who perched on a wooden chair like some sort of owl.

‘Ready for your lesson?’

‘I guess so.’ She opened a writing book.

Alistar scoffed. ‘You won’t be needing that. Writing is what you do when you aren’t paying attention to what is said. Now, we’re going to approach this lesson in a slightly different way. Think of it as approaching a lion when you want to pull its tail. That’s us. There’s not going to be books, or pamphlets, or greeting cards of spells for Elder House, or someone taking you through everything step by step. That’s going to happen in Ash House, or Oak House, and great, I’m sure those teachers will do a fantastic job of teaching you that. Or they won’t, which won’t matter to me anyway.’

It was what Elvie was coming to think of as typical Alistar drivel. He used a hundred words when he could have said something in fewer, and gave deliberately strange or vague references.

‘Let’s begin with an easy question, you know, to get the brain juices flowing properly. Have you ever been in two places at once?’

Elvie tried to think through the trick to his question but couldn’t spot it. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged. What did you say to that?

‘Hmmm… I often split myself in two. You’re there, for example, and your shadow is there.’ He pointed at the ground where his shadow stretched towards the wall. ‘And I’m assuming you’re shadow is you, right? Yes, well, aren’t you in two places then?’

‘But I’m not my shadow…’ It wasn’t a great start to her lesson, but he usually had a purpose to his rambling.

‘Well, it’s your shadow. If you move, does it move? Who else’s could it be?’

Elvie barely kept the frustration out of her voice. ‘Are you making a point I don’t understand?’

Alistar smiled crookedly. ‘Of course, sometimes I make points even I don’t understand. My first lesson and my first point – that’s a first! You need to stretch your mind past what you can and cannot do. Impossible is a word that exists when you don’t know what is possible. Can I be in two places at once? Who knows? Can I control my shadow, even dance with it? Maybe. And here is the moral of my lesson… it’s my favourite too – we don’t know anything.’

‘You’ve been telling me that since the first day I met you,’ she complained. That’s not a lesson. It’s just you repeating yourself.’

Alistar rubbed an eye absentmindedly. ‘It’s always important, in any starting point, to evaluate where you truly are and what you don’t know. It’s all upward from there, or uphill!’ He grinned at her, pleased. ‘So, lesson learnt for today, lesson over. And now, your homework: come up with three things you don’t know. Shall we say the same time tomorrow?’

Elvie managed to nod courteously, despite her frustration. She wanted answers, and once again, Alistar had sent her down a path of confusion. ‘That’s the shortest lesson I’ve ever had.’

‘I provide you with the thought, and you do the thinking.’ Alistar shrugged noncommittedly before he deliberately pulled a book off the side table and began reading. She didn’t have much choice but to depart.

It was not like the rest of her classes or school back home.

‘Wish I could just Google myself the answer,’ she muttered.

Despite his jibberish, she resolved to take his lesson to heart. It had been a night of lessons after all, and she tried to work through the critical point. Alistar had, in his usual way, tried to tell her that she needed to think outside the box when it came to Elder, that she needed to push the boundaries of what she thought was possible. That seemed to be in contrast to his earlier message about following orders. So when was it time for following orders, or time for pushing boundaries?

After the chaotic day she had experienced, Elvie was left with one impression about the past that she had not clearly seen in her own time. Choices had clear consequences and risks. Yet, somehow you had to figure out when to ignore the risks, push the boundaries back, and jump right in. Choose a course of action, and live with the consequences? Was that also part of Alistar’s lesson? She’d have to give more thought to the idea of choice and risk.

After all, that might be the only way she could find her way back to the future.