6. Prototemporal watch

Lily sat down next to him on the sofa as Charlie and Rhys closed the door behind them. Both had claimed that their families would be worried about them after so long away. As far as they knew, "the Spider" had not yet connected them with them or with the conspiracy in which Taylor, Peter and Lily had participated, so they had considered it worth the risk.

Arthur had warned them all he could, had tried to warn them, and had been unable to get them to stay. Although that would not have guaranteed their survival either. He remembered their names in the newspapers that he had kept in the attic of his house. He had the feeling that his blood was already staining his hands.

"What are you thinking?" Lily asked, bringing him back to reality.

"In prototemporal clocks," he lied. I'm not sure I fully understand the time travel thing.

Lily looked at him and took a deep breath before answering.

– Prototemporal clocks are an invention about which little information is available. Depending on who you ask, there will be those who will tell you that they were invented in the Roman Empire with different aesthetics, before that; that arose in the 16th century or may be many centuries from now. It is impossible to know, but "the Spider" has counted on them for practically as long as anyone can remember.

– I suppose the power to control the weather is a good way to control society.

Lily shook her head.

– But something that has never been achieved with prototemporal clocks is to alter the course of history. It doesn't matter what you do. It is just a source of information.

- Never? – he asked, leaning forward in surprise. Has no one ever been able to change an event?

– Some say that some isolated fact has changed but they never change anything really important or significant… They compare it to throwing a stone into a river, you may create a slingshot on the surface but you are not going to change the course of the torrent with a pebble. Even so, they have been one of the reasons why "the Spider" has gotten as far as it has. And besides, they are the only ones who have access to that technology and the only ones who know how to make it if they do.

The deaths announced in the newspapers turned his stomach.

– And why doesn't it allow you to travel to the future?

- Magic? A safety mechanism?” Lily shrugged. No one knows or no one has told me. For all practical purposes, if I had a watch and you held on to me we could travel to any past from now on, but if we traveled to the future you would travel and I would just stay here like I was playing with a toy watch. It doesn't work or do anything if you try to go beyond your present.

"I once met someone in my time who was young years ago, when my parents were." Arthur wasn't sure he'd expressed himself well, but he couldn't think of how to do better. I think it was a friend of theirs, who tried to warn them about "the Spider" in his time.

Walter McAllister was one of the great mysteries that this adventure had brought with it.

– Time travelers other than “the Spider” are strange. You shouldn't trust them easily.

– You trusted me.