18th June, 1891 — International Bazaar, Diagon Alley
Savino had come to the international bazaar in the interests of research, browsing the booths and tents in the hopes of finding – some clue as to where he had been seeing in his mind for the past fortnight.
This vision was a waking one. He had been getting flashes of it frequently, and every time he did it had happened at precisely the same moment. A quarter past three in the afternoon, to the minute; or 15:15 on his prized Italian pocketwatch, which had twenty-four-hour notation and ran exceptionally accurately. Savino checked it after most every dream, even in the middle of the night – but this one was especially hard to ignore.
Because, wherever Savino was stood, whatever he was doing, the daylight disappeared instantly into fog: now he was somewhere in the mountains, so high the air almost felt thin. The next day the flash had been closer, in some cavern or stone tunnel carved out of that same hillside, a new dank musty smell in his nose; as the flashes continued and he paced further in, he ran his hand along odd markings on the wall, turned to look at his companion with a grin blooming on his face; every day, he gestured in some direction – and then, every time without fail, there came a unnatural crack of noise or some close explosion, and the tunnel caved in.
It had stopped making him flinch, by this point, the jolt back to himself. It had happened enough, and the clockwork recurrence of this vision meant he was usually prepared for it, knew to stop himself in place, had stepped out of one of the tents in perfect time. What he wasn’t used to was blinking himself back from the dust and the dark and the rubble to the daylight and seeing one of the figures from that faraway place in the here and now, right in front of him, in the flesh. And it had to be her, the companion in the vision – she had the same hair and eyes and stature and was even dressed similarly, by which he meant more practically than almost every woman in London.
Accordingly (he had to say something to her, improvise an approach to this before he lost her in the crowd and missed his chance), Savino teetered where he was in the street, gaze caught on her for – just a beat too long to be normal.
Angie Swan
This vision was a waking one. He had been getting flashes of it frequently, and every time he did it had happened at precisely the same moment. A quarter past three in the afternoon, to the minute; or 15:15 on his prized Italian pocketwatch, which had twenty-four-hour notation and ran exceptionally accurately. Savino checked it after most every dream, even in the middle of the night – but this one was especially hard to ignore.
Because, wherever Savino was stood, whatever he was doing, the daylight disappeared instantly into fog: now he was somewhere in the mountains, so high the air almost felt thin. The next day the flash had been closer, in some cavern or stone tunnel carved out of that same hillside, a new dank musty smell in his nose; as the flashes continued and he paced further in, he ran his hand along odd markings on the wall, turned to look at his companion with a grin blooming on his face; every day, he gestured in some direction – and then, every time without fail, there came a unnatural crack of noise or some close explosion, and the tunnel caved in.
It had stopped making him flinch, by this point, the jolt back to himself. It had happened enough, and the clockwork recurrence of this vision meant he was usually prepared for it, knew to stop himself in place, had stepped out of one of the tents in perfect time. What he wasn’t used to was blinking himself back from the dust and the dark and the rubble to the daylight and seeing one of the figures from that faraway place in the here and now, right in front of him, in the flesh. And it had to be her, the companion in the vision – she had the same hair and eyes and stature and was even dressed similarly, by which he meant more practically than almost every woman in London.
Accordingly (he had to say something to her, improvise an approach to this before he lost her in the crowd and missed his chance), Savino teetered where he was in the street, gaze caught on her for – just a beat too long to be normal.
