I am walking through a sprawling mansion in the early 1800s. I’m an old friend of the family that lives here and a welcome guest, albeit one with a penchant for going unnoticed. Well “old friend” is perhaps not entirely accurate given my physical age, but time travel makes things complicated.

  It’s a rge extended family that lives here. Siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins. There’s some gossip going on about one particur branch of the family being unfit to handle the family business and finances anymore. Some of the family members are time travelers like myself; able to spontaneously will themselves into different eras, although the particur date, or even year is not exact. Those that are keep it a secret from the family members who are not. Or at least they all keep up the pretense.

  I wander into the mansion’s library and find a young woman going through different books, trying to decide what to read next. I fancy her somewhat and am about to make small talk with her by way of suggesting Frankenstein - a contemporary work that seems to be something she’d be interested in - but stop myself because I realize I might be a year or two early for that.

  Instead, I apologize for what’s about to seem like a dumb question and ask what year it is.

  She replies with anachronistic snark and profanity, then apologizes for it, bming it on having just read Scott Pilgrim.

  That does rather ease any worry of recommending books that aren’t out yet. As it turns out, she has not read Frankenstein and the idea of reading it when it’s still a new release entertains her.

  We talk for a time and she tells me that she was technically born nine years ago, but she’s spent most of her life in the future (most recently early twenty-first century), so from her perspective/personal timeline she’s been an adult living on her own for a long time. She calls the gender norms and roles of her home era “bullshit”.

  I ask her why come back here then, especially since during the conversation she’s indicated that she intends to stay?

  She says it’s out of loyalty to her father, another time traveler who chose to stay in this era.

  Also, the very far future has aggressive giant mutant grizzly bears with forelimbs twice the length of their bodies running around that hunt small whales with the faces of manatees.

  I promise to bring more future books for her the next time I’m in this decade.