Annie and the Wolves

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Release: February 2021
Format: Novel
Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Historical research Ruth McClintock and local high school student Reece have a journal written by Annie Oakley, from which they conclude that Annie was a time traveler to traumatic moments in her own life—a power that Ruth seems to share.

— Michael Main

Reece, it isn’t just clarvoyance or neurosis, either.
She’d tell him in person, the thing they should have come out and admitted from the start.
It’s time travel.

DEBUT

“Annie and the Wolves” (Soho, February 2021).

VARIANTS

2 English variants

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1800 to 1899: some of Annie’s time travel
Circa AD 1900 to 1929: Annie’s later life
Circa AD 2000 to 2099: Ruth

Timeline Models

Remembering Different Timelines: Ruth remembers an original timeline where Kennidy died at seventeen instead of nineteen.
Resilient Timeline: “Yet, things had ended up in the same place.”

Time Travel Methods

Emotional Outcries through Time: Both Annie and Ruth are drawn to moments of trauma.

Themes

Precognition, Premonition, or Prediction: for example, Ruth’s premonition that Scott will be hurt
Save JFK!: Annie tries to save McKinley.
Save “Lois”!: Ruth tries to save Kennidy.
Time Travel Sickness, Injuries, and Mixed-Up Body Parts: “Time-traveling back had sent damaging publses through her brain. She moved . . . saw . . . heard . . . felt like a stroke victim.”
Travels into Yourself: Some of Annie and Ruth’s travel seems to be into their own bodies, although other travel is definitely not.
Viewing the Past: Some of the milder episodes appear to be visions of the past more so than actual time travel.

Real-World Tags

Annie Oakley
Josef Breuer
Leon Czolgosz: Annie writes to Czolgosz.
Sitting Bull
William McKinley: McKinley is not in the story, but Annie tries to save him.

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From an unspecified place and time at an unknown time ⋙ to a railway line, 65 miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina, 29 October 1901. Note: Annie in Chapter 1.
From an unknown time ⋙ to hours later.
From an unknown time ⋙ to another (later?) time on the train.
From at Ruth’s home in a Marshall, Minnesota, just before 2pm on the first day of the story, a Friday in 2018 ⋙ to Ruth’s car crash on a bridge, a previous New Year’s Day. Round trip. Note: Ruth in Chapter 2.
From various places and times at an unknown time ⋙ to other times and places where Annie or Ruth have lived at an unknown time. Round trip. Note: We haven’t individually recorded all the rest of Annie and Ruth’s visions, time travels, and premonitions.