Re: [jude & hannah: tea]
There was a voice in his ear, a long-silent but sadly not forgotten voice, that made clear its displeasure with the way tea was rollicking along. Historical references, boy, know your audience and Hannah was furthest thing from the only other person in town with whom Jude spoke much, (as to which the voice would have been deeply scathing). But the coffee shop was not a con, if you please, and he'd been long out of practice with new people that it was bound to resurrect. Jude kept his reading of the conversation to the books discussed rather than the woman opposite and it felt a little like deliberately keeping the lights off, but so much the better to keep the voice quiet.
"The Romanovs are very dead, so they won't mind attending the funeral. A gravestone, for all three? Here lies bland instruction on how to live a life meekly, with great kindness and excruciating politeness. The Romanovs can weep at the grave-side, they're used to it," Jude waved a hand, sweeping a century of history along with the flick of his wrist, go now, shoo. Hannah wore her expressions up-front and surface, like a book propped open with the page marked and the wording underlined for good measure. But the story was a story and it demanded the telling and Jude sipped his tea slowly and watched anticipation bloom bright as poppies.
"No," he said, simply, "But she had to ask nicely, you see. And the governess was strict about prayers at bedtime, and manners and taking things away if you broke them, and when the little girl was put to bed without supper, which she thought very unfair, all things considered and her brother being what he was, she prayed in her bed. Say what you will about who was listening, but she asked with please and with thank you, to undo the day and to go back. And time unravelled quick as wool. Except she didn't know how to stop. Back and back and back she went, until she lost her place in her own time. She wept a little, because what child wants to be forgotten?" He looked at her, mischief-dark and comfortably elbows on table, as if being forgotten wasn't something Jude had ever contemplated as small, serious boy.
"So she had license to go anywhere she liked, so long as she could think it before the time unravelled. She saw the Romanovs, and the Victorians, and the Georgians who had excellent toys. She went back and back and back until she saw the Middle Ages when she wouldn't have been a little girl for long, and the Dark Ages before that. And eventually, time had to run out and stop."