|
|
|
|
EXCERPT - The Dragonfly Cathy’s head banged up and down on the hard surface of the floor of the vehicle. Where was she? Where was Al? Please don’t let him die, she pled to any deity out there listening.
She turned her head to the side. Her nostrils filled with the smell of sacking, just like the ones filled with potatoes at the vegetable shop. The material scraped her skin as her face grazed it with each shift of her body. Blood still caked her forehead, and the cuts on her hands and knees stung. She raised herself onto an elbow and reached upward with her other hand to the top of the board on the side of the cart and poked her head above the rim. Several men of various ages shuffled alongside the huge solid-wood wheels. They had long, bedraggled hair, and wore blanket-like cloaks. Ponchos? Who were these people and where was she? Bewildered, she dropped back down onto the bottom of the cart. She’d been picked up from the roadside by a bunch of hippies! They must be camped out in the forest somewhere away from prying eyes. Now no one would ever find her. She lay back down on the floor of the cart and tried to control her breathing, which came in panicked gasps. She feared they would hold her for a ransom, or something worse. The old man leading the horse rang a bell as he walked. Another played an odd melody on a pan flute. The music drifted through the misty air of the forest. The men called back and forth to each other, and she strained her ears to catch what they said. “Wifmann,” mumbled one man, “wohful.” The words were strange and guttural—almost Germanic. Although dumbfounded, Cathy understood what they were saying. Could she be wrong? Could this band of hippie misfits really be speaking Old English? She’d heard the ancient words for “woman wicked.” “Na wifmann wohful,” the old man yelled back. “She’s not a wicked woman.” Her vocabulary words from the class she’d just taken were fresh in her mind. She wasn’t mistaken. They were conversing in Old English. The old man raised his fist as a signal to the others to come to a halt. He let go of the horse’s reins, walked back and peered at the woman sprawled on the blanket. He held out his hand to help her as she struggled to sit up. He called out to the others, “Séo forht cwen aweccan—the frightened woman is awake.” She dangled her legs over the front of the cart and immediately felt dizzy. The old man said, “Bealo. Injury,” as he touched the gash on her head. His hand lingered in her hair, stroking the curls. “Don’t touch me.” Cathy pushed his hand away. “Who are you?” She spun her head around to face the others. “Are you Anglo-Saxon re-enactors from the village?” No reaction from the men. Either they were ignoring her, or didn’t understand plain English. “Hael wastu? How are you?” the old man said. “I am injured,” she answered in their language. Hell, I might as well play their game too, she told herself. They aren’t the only ones who know the old language. “My husband and I were in an accident. Two men were calling for medical help, and that is the last thing I remember.” “Woman, I know not what you are saying.” A frown crossed his forehead. “Then you must have found me and put me into your cart. Did you see my husband? I must find him,” she continued. “We found you near the road on which we travel back to our village, Stow.” “Do you work at the village?” she asked. “Everyone works in our village.” He appeared confused at her question. “Well, that is the answer. You are re-enactors. But why speak in Old English?” “I do not understand. What is that you call Old English?” She laughed, but held her arms across her chest to buffer the aching muscles. “And I really do admire how you keep in character, even down to using the old language.” “You speak about such strange things, woman. Sit back in the cart,” the old man commanded. “We must hurry along our journey. Our families will be worried about us if we are too late getting home.” Cathy inched backwards into the cart. He clicked with his mouth, and the horse resumed its pace along the rutted lane. She moved onto the scratchy blanket again and leaned on the logs for support. As soon as they arrived at the village, she’d call the police to pick her up and take her to the hospital. She was concerned for her own safety. Who knew what these men were up to? Al must be at the emergency room by now. She pulled the small phone out of her pocket and flipped the top open. It broke into two pieces in her hands—it didn’t light up, or sign on with the happy jingle she’d programmed it to do. Nothing. Silence. It was dead; she felt lost. No way to contact her husband. This is a nightmare. The acrid smell of wood smoke filled the air. In the moonlight, the outlines of small buildings appeared as silhouettes clustered on a small hill. The cart rumbled along the path as Cathy peered over the sides. The whole village looked different. Maybe I’m in a different part of the village. Strange-looking, long-haired pigs grunted from their enclosure. Isn’t this where the parking lot usually is? Cows lowed softly from the neighboring meadow. The Welcome Center should be there instead. What’s going on? A pack of dogs ran toward them, barking furiously. The cart jolted to a stop, which caused her to roll out of the back of the cart onto the muddy earth. She screamed in pain as she hit the ground. Her body bore so many cuts and bruises, and this sudden dumping added even more. One of the younger men held out his hand, and she grabbed hold as he hauled her to her feet. “Manig hearm. She has injuries,” he said as he steadied her. “Leave her. Slaves are not to be helped,” the old man yelled. “What do you mean, slave?” she snapped. She felt faint. “You are taking your acting parts too far. I will not be a slave.” “You have no choice. You appear to be from a far village. Your hair is dark and your eyes are almost black. Your kind is a remnant of the Romans, long gone, but whose issue remains. Our villages are those of pale skin, eyes and hair. Not dark like yours. You are now our slave and will obey all commands.” “No, I will not.” The young man grabbed the blanket from the cart and gently draped it around her shoulders like a shawl. Her neck and face instantly itched. The old man pushed her ahead of him. Cathy tripped on the ruts in the road. Her bruised and cut legs screamed pain with every stumble. “No need for cruelty, Pendor,” the young man grunted as he followed them. Pendor spun around to face the younger one. “The woman is a slave. She will do slaves’ work and live in the slaves’ house. It appears you think soft, like a maiden, Cuthbert,” he mocked. Cuthbert grimaced and spat on the ground. He led the horse away down the lane to the pasture before slapping the hindquarters of the animal. The freed animal bolted through the opening and pranced over to the huddle of horses on the opposite side of the meadow. Puffs of steam hung over their heads as they whinnied in greeting. A figure moved toward them carrying a lamp. Pendor prodded Cathy forward with a stick. The flame in the lamp guttered as the fat burned and revealed the face of an old woman. “What have you here?” the old hag asked in a raspy voice. She hacked out a bronchial cough and spat on the ground. “Found you a new slave, Etheldreda,” announced Pendor. “She’ll work for you and no one else in the village.” The woman’s grey hair hung in greasy rattails. She poked her face into Cathy’s and hissed her breath through brown and worn-down teeth. “Call me Ethel,” she said. Good Lord! Halitosis. This filthy, old woman is too real to be a re-enactor. This must be a dream. Or am I dead? Cathy waved her hand in front of her nose and shrank back away from the breath that stank like dung. The old woman reached over and tugged on Cathy’s hair. “Softe and clæne. Welig wifmann. She is soft and clean like a rich woman.” Pendor shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Ethel grunted and hitched up the long garment she wore to free it from the mud. She held the lamp up to shine a feeble light on the way and grabbed Cathy’s arm, painfully pinching it, as she pulled her along the pathway in the direction of a small building. “Ow!” Cathy yelled. “Stop squeezing me.” The old woman stopped at a crude wooden door, put a finger through a hole and lifted the latch on the inside. She shoved her new possession into the hovel. Cathy stumbled over the door’s threshold. Her foot hit some stones in the center of the room, which made her lose her balance. She cried out in pain as her shoulder hit a wood pole in the dark, before landing on a pile of straw. “Where is the light?” she sobbed out in the old language. Lit by the moonlight that pierced the darkness, Ethel placed the lamp on the plank floor next to a circle of stones. The stones surrounded a clay pit containing ashes of a previous fire. “I will make new fire.” Ethel grabbed a handful of straw from the corner of the room, touched it to the lamp’s flame and carefully placed it under a pile of kindling which she laid criss-cross within the pit. Flames licked the dry slivers of wood, which soon crackled and snapped as the fire came alive. She tossed some logs onto the burning heap. Each flame’s shadow danced on the bare wood walls of the hut. Smoke from the fire swirled up into the heights of the roof, where it escaped through the thatch. Cathy’s eyes began to water and sting from the smoke. She feared for her sensitive sinuses. No wonder the woman had a hacking cough. Ethel came closer to her, crouched down and stared at her with eyes covered with pale-blue cataracts. “Where are you from?” she asked. “I am not sure,” Cathy said quietly, “but right now, I’m exhausted and still bleeding from my cuts. I have to lie down and rest.” The woman grunted and nodded as she threw a dirty covering over a pile of dried heather and straw on one side of the hut and then handed her a rough blanket. Cathy lowered herself gingerly onto the primitive bed and pulled the blanket up to her neck. Fear crept into her being as she realized this village wasn’t the recreated village she knew. Thoughts swirled around inside her head. Where am I? What happened to me? Am I dead? Is this a dream? Am I in a parallel universe? Am I in another dimension parallel to our universe? Cathy thought back to a lecture she and Al had attended on the new “string theory,” where it is thought that time and dimensions bend and even operate simultaneously. Did the accident cause me to morph into another parallel world, identical to our universe but operating in a different time period? Where is Al? She wished she hadn’t been so impatient and snappy with Al. She was now stuck in this dream, or whatever it was. Unless she was dead, how would she return to her husband, her one love? She could hardly wait for daylight; she hurt—a lot. In the light, she might be able to determine what she should do next. Also, she’d need water to wash her wounds and look at her face for the first time since the accident. Her head ached. So many questions circled inside her head. She’d sort things out tomorrow. Exhausted and aching, she fell into a fitful sleep, jerking awake gripped with fear for her future, then falling back into a nightmare-filled slumber.
|
|
Home | Biography | Books | Excerpts| Reviews | Purchase | Links | Contests | Contact |
|
|
Copyright ©2008 Rosemary Goodwin | All Rights Reserved |
|
The
rhythm pounded through her head. Jiggidy-jog, jiggidy-jog. She soon
recognized the movement from her younger days of riding lessons. A horse was
pulling the cart over bumpy terrain. As they passed through an opening in
the trees, the moonlight shone down on the scene. Cathy surreptitiously
looked around her. She was in a rough cart with three high sides mostly
filled with chopped wood. She looked to the front of the cart, where the
rump of a small horse, a little larger than a pony, bounced up and down
between the shafts. An old man held the reins attached to the horse’s bridle
as he walked beside the animal