“Misplaced in time, a person can come unmoored as if they do not exist at all.” The satyr wore a heavy overcoat covering stag legs and carried a deep umbrella hiding his antlers. Jovis gripped the arm of a young lady stuffing her mouth as he spoke of grave matters. “I don’t mean to give you an existential crisis, but you may soon find yourself lost in the void, dissolving into the bright lights of foreign streets.”

Ava nodded gravelly, wiped a dollop of cream from her lips with a finger, and popped it into her mouth. “Unmoored. Void. Bright lights. Very scary.”

Jovis gave the sneak thief a condescending smile. He’d saved her from the authorities on the gas-lit streets of Cornwall and tasked her with stealing from his younger self. She’d succeeded in snatching the pocket watch which allowed time travel and promptly leapt through time evading him as she “searched for the best sticky buns in all of time and space.”

He’d nearly caught her several times, but at last, he had her in hand. “Give me the timepiece, and I’ll return you to your--Oof!”

Ava walked straight into a gaggle of children peering into a bakery. Jovis lost his grip, and she ducked inside. He shoved past patrons, but Ava was not among them. The baker glared. Jovis’s eyes landed on a glass cabinet filled with nothing but crumbs and a scrawled note.

Broadening search to include best puff pastries to fill void. Later ~A

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric