Anita — Protagonist

Anita’s life unravels in a single night when she returns home to find her flat ransacked and her partner missing. Forced to flee, she wakes in 1977, the day Elvis Presley died — a world she doesn’t belong to and can’t explain. Intelligent, instinctive, and emotionally raw, Anita becomes trapped between two timelines and a cult that believes she has a divine purpose. Her fight for survival drives the entire story.

Harriot Stapleton — Anita’s Grandmother (1977)

Young, hopeful, and unaware of the danger surrounding her. Harriot is manipulated into helping the cult, believing she’s assisting a harmless religious sister. Her connection to Anita becomes the emotional core of the story, grounding the time‑slip in family, memory, and fear.

Brother Francis — Cult Leader

Soft‑spoken, unnervingly calm, and utterly convinced of his own righteousness. Brother Francis believes he receives visions of future murders and that Anita is the missing piece in his “atonement” rituals. His gentle manner hides a chilling fanaticism, making him one of the most unsettling figures in the novel.

Sister Marguerite — The Vanished Archivist

Once responsible for recording every “cleansing” the cult performed, Marguerite disappeared months before Anita arrived. Her absence haunts the congregation, and her missing ledgers hold secrets that could destroy them. Mysterious, scarred, and morally ambiguous, she is the ghost in every room.

The Woman in the Fawn Raincoat — Cult Enforcer

Silent, watchful, and marked by a pale scar across her throat. She is the cult’s collector — the one who retrieves people, files, and anything Brother Francis demands. Her calmness is more frightening than violence, and her loyalty makes her one of the most dangerous characters in the story.

The Cortina Driver — Collector / Transporter

Emotionless, unreadable, and always present when something is about to go wrong. He drives the mustard‑yellow Ford Cortina that becomes a symbol of capture and control. His presence signals that Anita’s choices are narrowing.

Dean — Anita’s Partner

Missing from the moment Anita returns home. His involvement with dangerous men sets the entire plot in motion. Though absent, his actions echo through Anita’s journey, shaping the danger she faces.

The Congregation (The Cult) — Antagonistic Force

A secretive religious group living on an isolated Essex farm. They believe they can see fragments of the future — especially the faces of murder victims — and that Anita’s knowledge of the future can complete their “atonement.” Their rituals, ledgers, and obsession with cleansing create a claustrophobic, terrifying world.

⭐ Chapter One — The Door Ajar

Anita expected nothing unusual when she returned home that evening — just the familiar lavender scent in the hallway, the soft click of her lock, and the quiet of her flat. Instead, the door stood slightly open, a thin slice of darkness running down the frame like a warning.

She knew instantly something was wrong.

Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke and sweat — not hers. The living room looked as though someone had taken it apart piece by piece: cushions slashed open, books stacked neatly as if inspected, her grandmother’s clock missing from the mantel. In its place, a kitchen knife pinned a business card to the wall. Friday. No extensions.

Dean’s clothes were gone. His phone lay shattered. And the silence in the flat felt like it was waiting for her to understand something she didn’t want to face.

Then came the sound.

Boots on the stairs. More than one pair. Voices — calm, confident, not hiding. Men who walked like they already owned the space she was standing in.

Anita didn’t think. She moved.

Through the bathroom window, onto the fire escape, down the metal steps slick with rain. A shadow passed across the light behind her. A voice said, “Nothing up here.” She dropped the last six feet, hit the ground hard, and ran.

By the time she reached the street, her ankle was throbbing and her breath was ragged. But she didn’t look back. Whatever had happened in her flat — whatever Dean had done, whatever those men wanted — she knew she couldn’t stay.

She fled into the night, unaware that this was only the beginning. By morning, she would wake in a world that shouldn’t exist — a world where Elvis Presley had just died, where the year was 1977, and where strangers claimed to know her grandmother.

A world where nothing was safe, and nothing was real.  Read the rest of the story