"I was thinking about Jane."

"I was thinking about Jane..." As he spoke, Walter clutched his head in pain. When he opened his eyes, he found himself perched in a tree. Looking down at his hands in disbelief, he realized they were much smaller than they had been. Raising his eyes, he gazed out over the familiar village. There was his house, sat atop a small hill. A cobblestone path ran down to a wrought gate attached to a fence that encircled the place. The dirt road led out from there, into the small village. There was Mrs. Jenny's bakery, Horse-Faced George's blacksmithy, the leatherworking shop of young Will, and so many more.

An angry call from below had him looking below. Walter started in shock. A young woman with short curly brown hair was shaking her fist at him. Her sun-kissed skin was slightly browned from a number of hours spent chasing him around trying--usually ineffectively--to keep him out of trouble.

Was this a dream? But everything felt so real, from the rough bark of the tall oak tree that he sat on to the leaves that tickled as the summer breeze blew them against his thighs and forearms, left bare by his shorts and short-sleeved shirt. Angered by him ignoring her, Jane started to climb the tree to bring him down.

This was... just like in his memories. Walter watched her climb the tree, deja vu washing over him. Despite her promises to spank him until he couldn't sit for a week, he didn't move as she quickly scaled the tree with far more dexterity than one would expect from your average maidservant. If he remembered correctly, Jane would lose her footing a meter below him. She would fall a meter or so before her dress snagged on a branch. That would stop her for a moment, before the cloth would tear, sending her falling in just her knickers and brassiere. Her brassiere would be torn off by another branch, before her descent would be stopped by her knickers catching on a much stronger branch.

As expected, it all occurred exactly as he had remembered. The branch Jane stepped on snapped with a dry crack. She shrieked as she fell, her dress and brassiere torn off before her fall was abruptly brought to a halt by her knickers being caught, eliciting another strangled cry from the poor woman.

Climbing down the tree, Walter grabbed her slightly torn dress and plain white cotton brassiere. Reaching the ground, he looked up at the dangling young woman, her brown eyes squeezed shut in pain and humiliation, her face red making her freckles stand out even more. She wasn't the most beautiful woman, but with her above-average breasts--breasts that she was covering with her hands at the moment, considering the lack of any other article of clothing--pretty brown eyes, soft curly hair, and freckles, she did have a certain charm. Her white cotton knickers seemed to be quite stretchy, considering the lack of any fraying thus far, her legs kicking desperately. With how much they'd been pulled up, she had quite the cameltoe.

Of course, the constant string of curses coming from her was a bit of a turnoff.

"Jane, I still don't understand Welsh," Walter commented. He ignored her subsequent curses that came in Welsh, Gaelic, English, French, German, and Spanish. His mother had, over the course of Jane's employment with the family, taught her quite a number of languages. A pity she only used them like this.

The sound of a machine resonated in his ear, causing Walter to stumble. It repeated again and again and again, each time louder and louder, drowning out Jane's cursing. As the sound grew louder, it became more distinct. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Walter's vision was filled with blackness, and his ears were filled with the ticking of a clock.