Even gentle thoughts of Carlee dissolved into gnawing, bloodied terror. We were together on a country picnic, on a beautiful summer's day, frolicking on a rug, eating grapes and sipping wine, a scene of treasured perfection, when suddenly, inexplicably, a vile wind blew up, just as it had in the Ripley House. With chilling ease it laid waste all around. Our picnic was scattered, blown asunder before being whipped up, along with everything else in the clearing, into a vortex - a spiralling, ever-growing trail of detritus that spun round and around us. The noise was deafening and the ground began to shake. As we watched the unfolding devastation the trees wept blood and the earth spewed pus and the air around us seethed and burned our throats. We choked and stumbled, holding our hands over our faces and protecting our eyes from the heat. Through my terror I could hear Carlee cry my name, begging for help, but when I turned she wasn't there. And alone stood I. Again, again. Where had our idyll gone?

But still, in my solitude, I could hear her cries in my head, from some distant place, a place I couldn't reach. The more I heard her, remote and untouchable, the more the sense of disconnection grew, and the more my terror took control. I ran round the clearing, lungs seared by the heat and eyes baked and aching. Flames were licking around the scrub beneath the trees, their progress erratic but inevitable as they began to devour the helpless vegetation.

To watch as dreams give way to fears

Mephisto's blaze

"Carlee!" I yelled, but no voice emerged. "Carlee, where are you, please help me!" My mind was screaming but all around was the silence of confusion. I skirted round the advancing flame and waded through a sea of boiling pus until I reached the treeline. Choking from the heat and smoke, I fought my way through, pulling at the branches of the trees, red raw and hanging liked flayed skin and tendon. I was coming close to panic. Blundering through the thicket, eyes screwed shut, I stumbled and fell and picked myself up, stumbled again, and again and again. And still in my head I could hear Carlee's cries, her voice breaking with fear. Imperceptibly, the thicket became a forest, impenetrable, dense and deathly, the heat gradually transformed to icy cold, with darkness blocking my path. Believe, I told myself, believe: it isn't real, convince yourself it isn't real. But pain is real, and as I fell I I hit my shin on something solid. Instant pain shot through me, belying my faith in the triumph of reason. I lay on my back and closed my eyes and prayed for the comfort of oblivion. Dizziness swept through me, followed by nausea, and I felt my stomach turn and churn, felt the bile rise in my throat. I turned my head to the side just in time, as a volley of vomit spewed out of me. Not trusting my imagination, I closed my eyes: who could tell what foul substances would be erupting from my innards? On and on I went, retching and heaving, long after there was nothing more to expel. My throat ached and my stomach - emptied of contents - was convulsing violently but impotently. I felt the grass on my cheek, soft and damp, and begged for release.

"Harriet! Harriet!"

The voice was distant, as though filtered through time, an echo from long ago, like our shouts in the tunnel from earlier that day.

"Harriet, are you okay?"

Am I okay? Was I? Was I?

I didn't know. I knew nothing. There was nowhere for me to cling to, nothing to pull me back to reality. I felt something hot in my hand and a flicker of sensation on my cheek, which gradually grew stronger until I recognised it as something stroking me. I opened my eyes, still dizzy and disorientated, and squinted into the daylight. Cold October invaded my psyche. Carlee was by my side, staring down at me, her big brown eyes wide with alarm.

"Babe, are you okay?"

I blinked, as much response as I could sanction. My head ached and my mind was a blur. My body felt as though it had been hung on a line and beaten with a wooden stick. Carlee's hand, her sweet, soft touch, was my only solace and I nuzzled against it, feeling its life force draining into me, revitalising me.

"Are you okay?" she repeated, her voice calmer now, more soothing as she continued to stroke my cheek. Her beautiful face looked down, the concern in her features adding an aching, vulnerable sense of charm which reached me through my confusion. It is at moments of greatest weakness that the mightiest emotions are unleashed. I nodded. "You had a fit. One minute you were fine and the next you were flat out on the ground. But you're okay now, babe, don't worry."

A fit. That was what they called it the last time as well, twenty years ago, on the first occasion when I had a date with history in the Ripley House. An epileptic fit, the doctor told my mother in sombre tones, as though it was something to be ashamed of, something I had brought upon myself: medicine had a less human face in the nineteen eighties. She'll be able to lead a normal life, more or less, he continued. The bastard, he left the "more or less" hanging in the air, damning in its imprecision. I was treated like a weakling ever after.

But an epileptic fit it would be. I couldn't explain, couldn't begin to relate what had really happened to me, and an epileptic fit was as good an explanation as any. After all, how can you tell your new lover, freshly arrived from America, that you had just regressed in time? Again?

"I'm okay now." My voice was hoarse and the effort sent a splicing pain through my brain.

"I don't think you're hurt. I couldn't catch you when you fell but I don't think you hit yourself on anything. Bit of a miracle, really, with all these goddamned stones lying around here."

"I don't know." I really wanted to be unhurt, to get the episode over with, to return to town and normality, but I knew I wasn't. "My leg, it's really sore, Carlee, I think I've twisted it or something."

Or something.

"No, I don't think so babe, you fell straight down, like a sack of potatoes. Probably just the shock. Let nurse Carlee have a look." Carlee actually was a nurse, although a specialised one, and she was probably better at dealing with heart attacks than simple leg sprains. Whatever, she had the appropriate bedside manner and talked soothingly as she ministered to me. Her hands pressed against my ankle, fingers prodding and thumbs squeezing.

"Higher." Her hands ran up my ankle towards my shin, from where the dull ache was emanating, and when she hit it I screamed as a pulse of pain erupted through every nerve ending in my body.

"There?" she asked. I looked at her witheringly. "Jesus, hold on babe, this is bleeding." I glanced down and saw a long mark, like dulled rust, stretched across my jeans. Carlee's voice was incredulous. "How in hell did you do that? You never hit anything, I swear it. I saw you fall." She tried to roll my trouser leg up but quickly realised it was far too narrow to progress much beyond my ankle.

"Sorry babe, but I want to have a look at that, I think it's bleeding quite badly." The mauve blot, forbiddingly dark against the cool blue of the denim, had indeed taken on alarming proportions. I nodded and sat back. Carlee unbuttoned my jeans and I reflected that in any other circumstances this would be the summit of my desires. As it was I could do nothing else but lay back and let the pain wash over me, dull and sickly, like an ache in the soul. With my help she eased my jeans down and gingerly peeled them from my leg.

And there was silence.

I looked up at her. Her face had an appalled expression, the look of someone who has seen the impossible. She stared at me, speechless, and returned her gaze to my leg. I propped myself up to see.

There, where James Ripley had hit me with his shotgun, was a livid scar, two inches long, the skin broken and bleeding profusely.

"That's not possible." Carlee had gone pale, her voice trembling. "Harriet, I saw everything that happened. That's not possible. How did you do that?"

On to part five