The Implications of Anne's Time Travel

The novel opens with Anne Gallagher living in 2001 with her grandfather, Eoin, who is dying, and Anne soon travels back in time to 1921. Time travel usually has a set of rules to follow, and though not all of these apply to Anne, she makes discoveries along the way and deals with questions, including whether she is affecting the people and events in 1921.

An important issue that plagues many authors dealing with time travel is the method of travel. In Anne's case, she travels to a lake called Lough Gill in Ireland because her grandfather, Eoin Gallagher, gave her specific instructions for scattering his ashes. She is following these instructions when a thick fog blankets everything around her. A second later, she is in 1921, though she does not immediately realize what happened. Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that...