As the ship approached land, she prepared. She would leave her cloak of darkness on this vessel when she stepped ashore. She was free; she was safe. They’d never find her now.
Looking towards the shoreline that loomed larger, fear struck her heart. There were familiar landmarks, familiar sights on the horizon. She was back.
She approached the unfamiliar door and nervously took the key from her pocket. She took a deep breath, unlocked the door, paused, then opened it. To her horror she saw…
Nothing.
After everything she had been told, all the warnings she had been given, she expected so much more than the empty corridor that greeted her. As the door swung away from her, she felt her disappointment drop into her gut like a stone, weighing her down as she sighed deeply. Unlocking this heavy, wooden door was supposed to have been her personal metaphor, opening the door to her future, her adventure. But all it had done was disturb a lot of dust bunnies.
Sighing again, she shifted her rucksack on her shoulders and stepped over the threshold, her expectations diminished. Taking a few steps forward, she reached out and pushed the door shut again behind her. The dust muffled her footsteps as she walked down the corridor, and she kicked aside a few scraps of paper, what she assumed was the bits of wallpaper that had clearly been ripped off, leaving patches of yellow dampness across the walls. Every door leading off the corridor was closed, every one made of a thick, dark, heavy wood that she didn’t recognise. It made the corridor dim and eerie, and she felt her senses begin to heighten as she walked towards the furthest door, ahead of her at the end of the deceptively long corridor. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a disappointment after all. Perhaps there would be more to this place than there seemed…
The tears in her sister’s eyes were a punch to the stomach. Abigail sighed, buttoning her raincoat and grabbing a torch.
Abigail’s fear of storms had kept her safe until now. How had she found herself outside during one, searching for a cat? She promised herself that if she died, she’d kill that damn animal.
You are out walking through an isolated field and you stumble upon a small flag poking out of the ground. You walked over to the flag and decide to start digging. You can’t believe what you find.
The frost crunched satisfyingly beneath my feet as I walked across the large, empty field, and I pulled my coat tighter around me as a cold breeze stirred the grass around me. Sticking my hands in my pockets I started walking a little faster, eager to get back home where I knew hot drinks, a fire, and a hot water bottle would be waiting for me. Glancing around, I called out a name and smiled as the golden-haired creature came bounding towards me, tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Come on Bilbo, let’s go home – it’s bloody freezing.” I only allowed a moment’s pause to stroke the dog’s head before setting off again, smiling again as the animal charged ahead of me, changing direction every now and then to bolt after a floating leaf, or a blade of grass that had moved slightly in the breeze.
As I crested the small hill in the middle of the field, I paused again, taking a moment to look down on my sleepy village, deep in the heart of the English countryside. I watched tendrils of smoke spiralling into the sky from the countless chimneys, horses covered in thick fleece blankets grazing in fields around the outskirts of the village, and the bright red post-van trundling slowly down the tiny high street. It was like looking down at a greetings card, or a quaint puzzle scene, and I loved it. Nothing unexpected happened in a place like this, nothing out of the ordinary. People did the same things day in and day out, went to the same jobs, walked the same dogs along the same routes, bought the same groceries and told each other the same gossip. Perfectly ordinary, perfectly boring, and perfect for me.
It was as I began the descent back into the village that I found it. Well, I say I found it, but really the credit has to go to Bilbo. That damn inquisitive dog – if he wasn’t so nosy I might have simply passed it by, gone back home, had my hot chocolate by the fire and started a new knitting project, blissfully ignorant. But no, I had to have a dog that lived up to his namesake, eager for adventure and exploration. I knew I should’ve come home from the shelter with a cat. Cats don’t care enough to ruin your life with unexplainable discoveries.
I had only taken a few steps down the hill when I realised Bilbo had disappeared again. Calling his name, I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the low hanging winter sun, and squinted as I scanned the field looking for him. “Stupid dog…” I couldn’t help but mutter under my breath as I noticed him across the field, tail wagging furiously in the air as he scratched at something sticking out of the ground.
Trudging over to him I pulled his lead out of my pocket, scolding him as I attached it to his collar. “You’ve only got yourself to blame. You could have had the whole walk back to the village off lead, but you had to start digging. I’m not sitting through another lecture from Farmer Jones about your dig-”
Suddenly noticing what Bilbo had been scratching at, I fell silent and crouched beside the dog, reaching over to shift some loose dirt away from it. The dog sensed my curiosity, and sniffed around, whining slightly as he tried to start digging again. It was some kind of material, and I pulled at it, revealing a white skull and crossbones design. Weird – it could be some lost halloween artifact, but I knew for a fact that none of the village children had dressed as pirates this year. That’s the advantage of living in such a small village – you know everything about everyone. Of course, they also know everything about you, but that’s beside the point.
Weirder still, the material was attached to something still hidden in the earth.
Instructing the dog to continue his digging, I began to help, digging into the ground with my gloved hands and pushing aside lumps of soil. I lost track of time as Bilbo and I worked, creating a bigger and bigger hole in the ground, revealing some kind of metal pole. The pole went deep into the ground, and we continued to dig, grateful at the rain of a few days ago for softening the soil.
After what could well have been hours of labour, I paused, sitting back on my heels and staring into the crater we had created in the middle of Farmer Jones’ field. This made no sense. We were in the middle of England, miles from any sort of river, ocean or even stream – so how could this be here?
How on earth had a pirate ship ended up buried under a farmer’s field, on the edge of my tiny, boring, oh-so-ordinary village?
The tears in her sister’s eyes were a punch to the stomach. Abigail sighed, buttoning her raincoat and grabbing a torch.
Abigail’s fear of storms had kept her safe until now. How had she found herself outside during one, searching for a cat? She promised herself that if she died, she’d kill that damn animal.
Mrs W’s Writings