August 1968

“No!” The dark room was filled with the cry of a youthful, infuriated witch as she ran full pelt across the large chamber. A deafening boom resounded as rock hit rock and fell into place leaving a startling silence with the exception of the young witch cursing several words that are certainly not fit to be put on parchment. She practically threw herself at the large rock before using thin fingers to grasp at it in vain attempts to free herself from her new incarceration.

She scratched and pulled and pushed and kicked.
She cursed and hexed and charmed and hit.

All efforts presented to be pointless as she merely wasted her energy. The great rocks that held her captive showed no signs of shifting and beads of salty sweat began to form on her forehead.

“That rock’s going nowhere, Char.” A voice came from the wall behind her and Charisma span around to see a green light glow from the tip of a wand, steadily lighting the room. The holder of the wand was sat comfortably against the wall. Long khaki covered legs spread out in front of him, dusted in debris and sand. A stone coloured hat sat on the man’s head, casting his grey eyes in shadow and causing the short stubble across the lower half of his face to appear darker than it really was. He hadn’t offered to help. Charisma gritted her teeth and stubbornly planted her now cut and blistered hands on her hips.

“Well thank you Nostradamus, for that gleaming revelation.” The frustrated witch responded, her voice positively dripping in sarcasm. “Do you have any other remarkable prophecies to regale?” The wizard four years her senior just sat there looking up at the young woman, his eyes and the twitch in his lips revealing mild amusement. It amazed Charisma how he could just sit there, unmoving and unperturbed by the severity of their present situation. This man really was something else.

She glared at him for what felt like at least ten minutes as if tempting him to just get a little bit angry. But the man just sat there, hat tilted, a tiny smirk on his lips, taunting her further. Charisma huffed in frustration before dropping the rucksack on the dusty ground and lowering herself to sit next to him with all the grace of three legged squid.

“What now then, oh genius husband?” The young Mrs Aldridge folded her arms across her chest and spread her own legs out in front of her in the dirt.

“We wait.”