Enlightenment

Part 34

              It was already dark when we arrived in the small village due to the shortness of the winter days. I looked around as we drove along the main road. Jamie glanced at me;

“Do you recognize anything?”

I shook my head, “no… a lot changes in over 400 years…” my breath caught as we rounded the corner and I caught sight of the church, it was almost exactly as I remembered it. Naturally there were a few alterations but the main building was basically the same… memories of sitting inside every Sunday flitted through my head and I let out a small choking noise.

Jamie looked concerned, “Jade, are you… ok?”

My head was shaking of its own accord, even as I answered; “yes, I’m fine… I just, I recognized the church that’s all.”

              Silently he laid a hand on my shoulder and I smiled weakly at his gesture of comfort.

              We went past a small 24 hour convenience store and a café, before driving along the sea front, and past a deserted amusement arcade. Shortly after rounding another corner we came across a hotel so I pulled into the car park.

              On the outside the building looked fairly old and worn, but in a comfortable way; as if it had stood there for many years observing as life passed by.

              On entering we were greeted with antique furniture clustered around in random circles in a lounge area. The chairs and sofas were all dark red and cozy looking with small wooden tables’ in-between.

              The room was deserted so we walked through to the next room which turned out to be the bar. If I had thought there were a lot of antiques in the lounge, it was nothing compared to this room. All available wall space was filled with various objects like horse brasses and the old tankards that were used before beer glasses came about. Various lamps stood around the room that clearly used to take gas before they were converted to electricity, and I even noted an old axe hanging above the bar. The old bells that would have once been used to summon the staff still ran along the back wall. I smiled to myself sadly, remembering the times when all of these objects would have been considered commonplace.

              The place was not very crowded, a few lonely people sat around the room, leaving quite a few places empty. An older gentleman stood behind the bar chatting to one of the locals. From the traces in his accent I decided he must have once lived in Greece, or somewhere similar.

              At the sight of me and Jamie he straightened up, putting on a welcoming smile;

“Hello there, what can I do for you?”

I returned the smile, “Hello, we were wondering if you have any rooms left? We need somewhere to stay.”

He gestured for me to wait before disappearing through the door behind him and reappearing moments later with a book. Opening it he flicked through and frowned,

“I’m afraid we only have one room left, it’s an executive double. We get a lot of people coming for Christmas and New Year you see,” from his tone I could tell he expected us to not have the funds necessary for such a room. I pulled out one of my gold debit cards, causing his eyes to instantly brighten.

“We’ll take it.”

              The room turned out to have a 42" LCD flat screen TV and a large four poster bed. I was also pleased to discover a mini fridge which I proceeded to load the blood into. Jamie flopped onto the bed exhausted from all the travelling while I pulled out my phone to check my calls. I frowned when I realized I had a missed call from Kirsten, one of my correspondents in Germany. She managed a lot of my money and stocks over there and she was good at what she did, leaving me content to leave her in charge for the majority of the time. I called occasionally to check in, and she usually only called me if there was some sort of problem.