Time
The imagery of time is obvious from the title and the very first chapter. This is a time-travel narrative where a time leap takes a girl into the past on a journey of presumably factual history (at least in the novel's universe) with strikingly synchronous details which correspond to her gradual discovery of self. The time journey leads her to emotional discoveries of death and decay, and of oblivion from which she rescues this ghost-story of a narrative—at least for a small while until this time passes as well. The novel is essentially a meditation on time.
Victorian imagery
Annie's character is defined by her fandom of the Victorian world. She loves that era of history and finds herself constantly intrigued by facts about that period of human history. But still, she does not have concrete experience of that imagery until she tries to impress a new love interest by showing him an old house. The intention shows the boyfriend as a kind of animus figure (animus=a male figure who guides her into a discovery of self approval), and instead of showing him the house, the house shows her an amazing revelation of human narrative and the majesty of the human experience. This all happens through the vehicle of Victorian imagery so that by the end of the novel, the whole story counts as part of Annie's character; she is a symbolic remembrance of the past—the heroic time traveler.
The social dance of marriage
The aspect of life which is most striking in the Victorian universe is the high elevation of social manners with regard to sexuality. Rather than secluding all sexual issues to purely private domains, the Victorian world is anchored around places and situations where it would be appropriate for young people to meet and arrange themselves into couples. This is an imagery replete with tantra and beautiful elegance. Annie's discovery of Victorian culture is indirectly and abstractly a discovery of marriage, of social rule, and of the intricate dance of participating in a community.
Conspiracy and betrayal
Her participation with her community makes Annie an unintentional accomplice to a murder and an attempted murder. The unintentional nature of her involvement makes the sin a kind of sin of ignorance, but when she becomes experienced in time, understanding the heavy nature of death as the fruit of time's tree, then she realizes that she may bear some guilt for her unintentional involvement as a complicit participant in social dances that were corrupted. Of course, this is all abstract imagery within her emotional thoughtlife, and rather than taking any of this as automatically thematic, the reader should remember to view Annie's opinions and emotions within the broader context of her evolution—the novel is evolving her into an epic hero of the past.
