A CHRISTMAS WISH

Chapter 2: Realization

CHAPTER 2:

REALIZATION:

The Sun was shining the birds were chirping and a warm, sweet-smelling breeze wafted its way into her room, nudging her slowly awake from a deep, dreamless sleep.

Sarah stretched her hand out towards her bedside table to turn on the lamp but encountered the softest of silk against her fingertips. She sighed contentedly with eyes half closed. She was feeling more comfortable than she had ever felt on her lumpy little single bed mattress and was loathe to wake up. She stretched out her arms and legs like a preening cat, oblivious to everything but the feel of the comfy mattress cushioning her body.

But unfortunately the last vestiges of sleep were fast deserting her and she had no choice but to reluctantly turn onto her back and open her eyes.

Her scream was loud enough to shake the walls. It took her a whole minute to shut up. Where in blazes was she? Sarah's head moved around in every direction like she was having an epiplectic seizure.

Above her was a billowing mass of crimson material worked into an intricate tent-like shape tethered to four posters of a massive bed that all but swallowed her up. She felt like Goldilocks in the big papa bear's bed. It lay in the centre of a cavernous room that looked big enough to house a tennis court. An imposing fireplace large enough to cook all of London's Doners in one go stood at one end of the room with a thick rug and a bulky, high-backed chair lying in front of it.

At the foot of the bed she could just about make out a large rectangular wooden chest and on her other side next to some tall red curtains stood a giant wardrobe. It seemed she had been plopped right into the middle of Henry the VIII's boudoir, complete with imposing grey-stone walls and a massive vaulted ceiling.

Barely had she calmed her racing heart or so much as released the heavy covers that she clutched protectively against her neck that the door slammed open and a dumpy little woman came running into the room. Sarah would have screamed again but her throat was pretty dry from her last bout and all she could muster was a scared little whimper.

"What is it milady?" the woman asked agitatedly, "Are ye feeling unwell?"

"Calm down, calm down calm down......." Sarah kept on reciting that refrain to herself. 

Where was a paper bag when you needed it? She was starting to hyperventilate and that was definitely not a good sign.

Who the hell was this woman? and why was she dressed like a peasant from an ITV documentary on the Middle-Ages? She looked almost as scared as Sarah did herself, more so in-fact with her tiny hands wringing and her brown almond eyes wide with fear. Think! Sarah told herself, where could she possibly be and why.

Had she been kidnapped while she slept? She tried racking her brain but all she remembered was talking to a strange man on the street and getting herself fired. She vaguely recalled stumbling into her studio apartment in Ealing and collapsing onto the bed but nothing else came to mind.

Maybe she had been drugged she thought but she didn't feel woozy in the slightest and she didn't have a hangover. So it couldn't be alcohol or drugs. Then why was she lying here in this massive bed with a tiny woman hovering over her like a flustered chicken.

"What is the matter Milady? Why will ye not answer me?"

The "will ye not" had Sarah giggling. Unfortunately it made the other woman look just about ready to faint. Sara squelched her wayward sense of humor and quickly made to reassure her.

"It's alright um............ maid.... I just, just," Sarah couldn't think of a single excuse, she had never ever called a woman a maid before but some form of address was better than none at all, at least speaking seemed to calm the poor woman down somewhat. Now for the excuse, "I just had a ......bad dream." Eureka! Sarah congratulated herself on her not-so-fast thinking.