Carmen’s Grandmother on her Mom’s side, Hazel Greenwood was born in London in 1929. An only child, she lost both her parents to cancer before she was a teenager. Hazel met Amos Barkley at MIT in the late 1940s at a University party for PhD’s. Hazel was shy and reserved, having retreated inward after her parent’s untimely passing. Amos, on the other hand, was boisterous, rebellious, and full of energy, willing to do whatever it took to enforce his sense of conviction and curiosity. Hazel admired his passion, can-do attitude, and his daring. Amos was drawn to Hazel’s intelligence and drive. After meeting, they became inseparable. Both pursuing a passion for the sciences, they were enrolled in different disciplines that ultimately intertwined their paths.

Hazel was deeply involved in the study of Biology, with a specific interest in Evolutionary Biology. Her curiosity and studiousness led her to a focus in canines, intrigued by their relationship with humans over centuries. Graduating in 1952, she was one of the few women to have pushed through the barriers of a predominantly male-dominated field at the time.

Amos, on the other hand, was fascinated by the mysteries of the universe and pursued Physics, focusing on the emergent field of Quantum Mechanics. His studies led him to deep contemplations about the nature of reality and the possibility of other dimensions. He graduated the PhD program alongside Hazel in 1952.

Their shared love for science and discovery led to a relationship that bloomed into marriage soon after graduation. Together, they embarked on an adventurous journey of scientific discovery and innovation, fueling each other's pursuits.

Hazel’s powers manifested when she was a teenager [insert something here about when she discovered her ability to jump her physical body across Spacetime, the unique ability she has discovered that is one of 15 total abilities across all 15 family members aka chapters] and she was hesitant to use them until she could understand them more, for fear that they were unnatural and could lead to unforeseen and unpredictable problems. But, as pressure mounted in university during her thesis studies and she fell behind the other PhD students, Hazel began to use her abilities for evolutionary research, feeling guilty throughout that she was cheating. She had never told anyone, but as she began to fall in love with Amos, she felt the desire to confide in him.

As Amos was struggling with his research in quantum mechanics, he had brilliant theories for which he was given flack by his professors, lacking proof to back up his divergent claims. His role models, like Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, were uprooting traditional knowledge that threatened institutional leaders such as Amos’ professors, and they challenged him at every step of his research. Frustrated at her inability to help Amos through his frustration, Hazel revealed her powers to him, proving that his theories were indeed correct. Hazel begged Amos to not tell anyone and he agreed; even though he got poor marks on his dissertation, he didn’t care because he now knew that he was right all along.

Amos was mesmerized by Hazel’s powers and at first Hazel was delighted to have made Amos so happy. But she became scared because of her lack of trust in her abilities after they came to discover that not only could she jump across Spacetime herself, but she was also able to move Amos’ physical form there and back. Since her parents had passed before the powers had blossomed in her teenage years, Hazel never got to ask if they were something that everyone in the family possessed, or learn how to use them. Besides, her parens were reserved and withdrawn, so she was unsure if they even would have shown her how they worked. Because of these reasons, Hazel never felt comfortable with her powers, so she was scared something terrible could happen.

Amos, however, the risk taker, insisted that he was continually learning more about Spacetime due to his research and the discoveries of the great and rebellious thinkers of the time, and that he would be okay. He kept pushing and pushing things…

Hazel was afraid to let Amos go poking around in different universes and eras for fear of unintended consequences, but Amos was thrilled to explore. He tried to appeal to Hazel and her thirst for knowledge, doing good, and most importantly, her rabid curiosity. Amos told her that, together, they could use her powers, and suggested dog breeding in an effort to wipe out certain diseases and grow their knowledge. Hazel was hesitant at first, agreeing only for small experiments. But after the experiments worked, she got hooked, traveling to different past eras with Amos and selecting dogs and then traveling generations later to see how they turned out, and if they were able to save entire species and breeds. Hazel became obsessed, asking Amos to build them an entire secret laboratory for these studies, and hiding it in such a way that no one could find her studies or their implications on how she was altering the course of history.

After that worked, Amos suggested she show the dogs off, saying it wasn’t fair that she got no credit for her brilliance. After all, she couldn’t talk about what she’d done, but she could at least show off the dogs. And so, Hazel began to enter dog shows and got addicted to winning with her prized breeds, a fine consolation for her thankless contribution to our much-improved world.

Amos loved seeing Hazel happy and Hazel loved seeing Amos happy, so this cycle continued. They would spend more and more time in other eras. Hazel and Amos got pregnant (with Carmen’s Mom, Willow) and she decided that she should no longer travel herself, so Amos went alone, gone for long stretches and returning with magnificent breeds. Hazel loved it, insisting on new ones, giving notes, and directing Amos. Amos continued pushing her abilities, past her comfort zone, deeper and deeper into the universes, stretching her reach across Spacetime. But Hazel loved him, and this work had become both an expression of their love and their mutual life’s work, so she persisted and challenged herself to overreach.

Eventually, when Willow was 3, Amos never came home. There was no sign of him and it was as if he never existed. Hazel was dismayed and attempted to search for him, but he never came back. She blamed herself and stopped using her powers immediately, locking down their laboratory never to be opened again, tending only to her dogs and her house, and struggling to deal with her guilt. The award-winning breeds she evolved were all that remained of her beloved husband.

Willow barely remembers her father, having only photos of them when she was a baby, though his image always seemed to fade in and out of existence in an unexplainable way. Sometimes she experienced bizarre flashes and odd sensations of her father’s presence that she can’t explain. It all became much more unnerving and intense once Willow’s own abilities blossomed in her youth, especially after Hazel abruptly shut down all mention of the powers when Willow confided in her [should we write the story of this moment? Maybe tie it to Willow’s character backstory].

All of this manifested into a fear for Hazel of getting close to another person, and eventually an intense dread of her grandchildren eventually developing their own powers once Willow grew up and became pregnant with Carmen. Instead of ever talking about them, Carmen and her daughter Willow spent their whole life hiding their abilities from everyone, especially family and in-laws, to the point that they atrophied and the two all but forgot how to use them. Hazel was regimented, scheduled, and always quiet, polite, and reserved, only spoke about the weather, made sure everyone was fed, and kept things small talk and surface level only. She expected Willow to behave in much the same way.

In Carmen’s childhood experience of Grandmother Hazel, the only topic that ever lit her up was dogs (except the weird doghouse/shrine in the backyard, which everyone was always forbidden to touch, a sore subject around the house that Carmen grew up knowing to never bring up).

Wracked with guilt and worrying that keeping silent was a mistake after all these years, Grandma Hazel has now decided to open up to her very small family. At first, she had started working through her feelings on paper to build up the courage to share with Carmen and Willow her backstory and let them know what happened to Grandfather Amos. In some diary entries, she even considered lifting the strict embargo on their powers, and helping to train Willow (and possibly even Carmen) on how to tap into their abilities, including them in her quest to find their father/grandfather, not knowing that the two had been exposed to such training for years due to Willow coincidentally marrying Carmen’s father, who just so happened to be from the only other bloodline in existence to possess the Spacetime Gene – all of which Grandmother Hazel never knew because the topic had been so strictly off limits for decades.

As she was loosening up and working through the guilt of exposing Willow to a life without a father, she sent Willow and Carmen a note to come over; as she was preparing what to say, she vanished and popped out of existence, along with the rest of the family. Thus begins the mystery of Chapter I: Grandmother Hazel’s Cozy Dog Cabin (below)

[Spoiler/Twist Possibility – Later on, after all stories are complete, players can discover the accident with Amos may not have been Hazel’s fault – there was either a bad guy who affected things OR some cosmic issue made it happen but Hazel was not responsible. Upon this discovery, they’ll be able to not only absolve her of guilt, but also Carmen will locate and save Amos, reuniting them in the end, and getting a chance to meet her grandfather Amos for the first time. When this occurs, history can be instantaneously rectified, and a lifetime of memories of Willow growing up with her father, and Carmen with her grandfather, may be reinserted into Timespace with all of the love and lifelong relationship reinstated.]