NOTE: The first 20 episodes of this are available free on Wattpad; after that you will need to visit Radish Fiction to read the rest (or you can start the story free on Radish Fiction as well - https://radish.app.link/jmfsJGdOmqb)

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"To my granddaughter Emma Scott I leave an emerald ring owned by my mother," the lawyer read from the paper in front of her.

I looked up from my hands. "That's me," I said, even though the lawyer and I had been introduced earlier.

The lawyer leaned over her desk and handed me an old crocodile skin ring box. I sat back in the chair and opened it. Inside was a gold ring with a tiny emeralds and pearls in a claw settings. The ring was lovingly cared for, bright gold and emeralds so clean it was easy to see that they were small and flawed.

"Thanks," I mumbled, snapped the box shut and tucked it into my coat pocket.

When I looked up, my mum was looking at the pocket, wide-eyed. "Perhaps I should look after that. It's valuable, and your dormitory probably isn't the safest place for it."

My hand, still in my pocket, closed around the ring box. The ring had stories - I could feel it whispering to me from its little velvet casing. That was why mum wanted it away from me.

"No, thanks," I said. "I'll keep it. Grandma Alice wanted me to have it, not you."

"Just be careful, Em," said mum.

"Obviously," I replied.

The reading continued. Alice's possessions had been split between her four children, aside from three bequests. Her brother Edgar's war medals to their surviving brother Lionel; the ring to me; and Alice's mother's journal to mum.

Mum had accepted it without a word, but her face had gone white as she tucked it under her hands in her lap. Her fingernails were neatly trimmed, and the last knuckle curled over the marbled binding of the book. The pages were buckled and yellow; unlike the carefully cared-for ring, this journal had seen some sights.

"Can I see?" I said.

Mum's fingers tightened around it. "You can--read it when I'm finished," she said.

I grimaced, not keen on crawling through some old lady's spidery handwriting to hear about darning socks and changing nappies.

* * *

The ring box was in the front pocket of my bag when I boarded the train from King's Cross back to Durham.

It was a Friday afternoon, and the train was crowded with people escaping to the North for a summer weekend.

The train journey passed quickly; I was lost in my thoughts, sort-of mourning my grandmother, although I'd barely seen her in nine years, ever since a shattering argument between her and mum.

The train deposited me on the platform at Durham in the early afternoon. I tucked my light cardigan into the handles of my overnight bag and walked down into the town to the college. As I walked, I slid my hand into the pocket and my fingers brushed the ring box.

For a moment, I was walking along a different street, wide and flat, crowded full of street-vendors and women in aprons and black straw hats. A tram trolley rattled down the middle of the street, and girls in dirty pinafores dodged across the tracks, weaving around old motor cars and horse-drawn carriages.

The dominant impression was of noise, from every direction, reaching out towards me.

Then I was back in Durham, shaking. Not from shock per se; memories like that were a fairly standard part of my condition. But it was hard to become completely immune to the feeling of being drawn into a memory, like a rollercoaster at the top of its arc.

This one was older than usual, too. Where was this street? London, I thought; the East End. Granny Alice had grown up in the East End. Perhaps if the memory drew me backwards into her life I'd be able to ask her all the questions mum had stopped me asking.

I knew so little about Granny Alice. Before the incident when I was ten, we had spent most weekends over there. Alice had the best dress up box a child could wish for, full of musty-smelling old skirts, dresses that made me feel like Eliza Doolittle, and old court shoes with the leather cracking. She always had a cold egg salad and cake ready for me.

I opened the drawer to put the ring box in. After a long moment, I shut it again.

* * *

On Monday, I woke from a dream of a dingy, dark bedroom and a woman screaming with the pains of labour.

Between classes, I called mum.

I was expecting her to be surprised I'd called; maybe even a bit worried. Phonecalls were generally reserved for family emergencies and major incidents.

But she answered in tears. I could hear her trying to compose herself, with deep, gulping breaths. "What is it?" I said. "What's wrong?"

"Hello, darling," she replied. "It's so wonderful to hear from you."

Maybe grandma's death was finally hitting her. Maybe she regretted the lost years between them.

"What's going on?" I said.

"Nothing, nothing," said mum. I heard two more deep breaths. "Just got caught up in some family history."

"About Granny Alice?" I said, leaning forward in my seat.

"In a way. I read the diary." Mum's voice was still wobbly.

"Oh." Not what I was interested in, but a good enough segue. "Actually, I wanted to ask about the ring," I said. "It's..."

No, now wasn't the time to tell mum I was almost certain the ring would pull me somewhere as soon as I touched it. I wasn't worried--I'd never been pulled backwards more than a couple of years, and I usually managed to undo it. But the dreams... they made me pause.

"It belonged to my grandmother," said my mum. "It was Granny Alice's most prized possession."

"Why?" I said.

"It had... a certain significance."

I frowned. "What significance?" What did the ring witness?

"It was passed down from mother to daughter."

"Did you think you would get it?" I said.

"I suppose I did," said mum. "But I--I understand why Granny Alice gave it to you."

"You can have it if you want."

There was a long silence. Long enough that I was just inhaling to ask what had happened, then mum said, "It's right you have it." The tears were back in her voice. "Em, I love you," she said. I grimaced. Mum and I were close; that was what happened when your parents split up when you were three and your father moved to China. But things were complicated between us too, because of my condition.

"You too," I said automatically, frowning at the phone. "Bye."

"Wait--"

I paused in the act of hanging up. "Hm?"

"How are you?" said mum.

"Oh." Guilty daughter moment. I dedicated fifteen minutes to complaining about the train journey and giving the expurgated version of my weekend. "And no... incidents?" said mum.

"No," I replied, too quickly. "I've got to go to class."

"Yes, of course," said mum. "I'll let you go." She paused and said, "I'll miss you, darling. I love you."

"Mum, seriously, are you okay?" I said, because this was not normal behaviour.

"I'll be fine," said mum.

"Right, but call me if you're not, yeah."

"Will do."

"Bye, mum."

"Bye, darling."

I walked home after class. Reaching my residence hall, I threw my backpack on the bed, and rolled my shoulders. In a few hours, dinner would be served. In the meantime, I was supposed to be working through a problem set on accrual accounting that would have to be turned in tomorrow.

I sat down at my desk. The room was so small I could lean across to the bed and fish out my accounting textbook and laptop. I didn't take off my shoes.

Booting up the laptop, I arranged everything to my satisfaction. Pens, paper, books, ring box. I took it out of my desk drawer and set it off to the side.

The problem set involved balancing the books for a hypothetical company.

I pulled the box towards me and opened it to study the ring. The emeralds were all in claw settings, which were revealed by the two missing stones at the edge of the cluster. The gold band was thin. Again, I thought: I doubt this is worth very much. But it had been Granny Alice's prized position. And it had something it wanted to show me.

I hovered my hand over the ring. If I balanced the box on my fingertips, then the merest twitch would break the contact. And I wanted to know where that street was, what the bundle had been, and who had been the screaming pregnant woman.

The stones made cool impressions on my fingertip. Then they became warm. My room vanished from around me, replaced with the busy street I'd dreamed of. I darted my gaze around until I found a street sign on the side of a brown brick building: Mile End Road. One of the main arteries of East London.

And across the street, a brown-haired man with a strong jaw wearing a rough shirt and pin-striped trousers had stopped in his tracks to look at me.

I felt the the momentum start to build up, the rollercoaster preparing to plunge downwards, carrying me with it into the past, and threw the ring box away from me. The scene evaporated, and I was back in my room.

I bent down to find the ring box, which had dropped to the floor between the desk and the bed. It took my shaking hands a couple of attempts to grip it. I put it back in the place I had designated for it, beside my ballpoint pen, and sat back in the chair.

What had happened on Mile End Road?

What was the link to the ring?

And who was the man who had seen me in the moment when I had almost tumbled from my time to his? Putting my hands behind my head, I leaned back in the chair and called him to mind.

His shirtsleeves had been rolled up, and he had a lumpy canvas bag--potatoes?--over his shoulder, and had been wearing a cap over his brown hair. He'd been in the act of turning into the gates of an old building made of heavy grey stone. His bearing gave me the impression of a proud young man, and the open shirt showed broad shoulders and strong arms.

Something stirred in my gut. I couldn't get his face out of my mind, nor the tanned skin where his shoulder met his neck. I wanted to know more.

* * *

A/N: Hello! I hope you enjoy the story! If you're on Radish, there's a still free but slightly more edited version of this story here: https://radish.app.link/oghg8FmtPH (they're really very similar & I hope you enjoy it wherever you read!).