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When I woke up, my head pounded like one of those parties at school that I'd thankfully never been subjected to. It ached like nothing I'd experienced before. Slowly, I pulled myself up, my vision blurring in and out with each brief movement. As I sat up, I felt a sharp pain in my ankle - the one that had given way. It was swollen, red, and from what I could tell it was certainly sprained.
I turned to the stone, wincing slightly, but my eyes widened as I saw it. The letters were gone, as though they'd never even been there in the first place.
I looked around in my daze of confusion, noticing now that my surroundings were completely unfamiliar. Where were the cars, the roads, the chimneys of billowing smoke. Where were the people? The smell of popcorn? The sound of radios?
I stood, gripping my ankle as I did so. Limping forwards, I tried to understand my surroundings. No roads? Forests that had never previously been there? What was this? Some cruel trick? Surely it was too soon for Halloween pranks, and far too late for April Fools. So what was going on?
I wandered back up the hill, each step agony. The world began to enclose around me, and I could feel the panic rising within. I took a deep breath, pushing back every doubt and fear as I kept limping on. There had to be an explanation for this, and I would find it.
"Ic nāt!" A voice yelled, making me jump. They continued to speak in what almost seemed like nonsense, but there was familiarity to each word. Two people began to laugh from wherever the voice was coming from, and I approached the sounds.
"The fact that you can speak Old English is either really impressive or really sad and I can't tell which." I laughed as my father continued to serenade my mother in a song he'd written entirely in Old English. "Mom, what do you think?"
"Ic nāt." She shrugged in response, making my father smile in utter glee as he recognized her use of Old English - the tongue of Anglo-Saxons.
The memory wasn't significant, but it came back in a flash when I heard the two people converse. They were speaking Old English, a language that I was far from fluent in. Reenactors perhaps? Maybe they'd come from the museum. I sighed in relief as I made my way towards them, hoping that they'd be able to point me in the right direction as I now found myself utterly lost. But the closer I came to them, the stranger the situation seemed. The ancient stone walls of York were there, but the whole city was gone. I could see smoke from within the walls, but it certainly hadn't come from a chimney - more likely an open fire. The lack of noise and pollution was unsettling as I began to realise that something was completely wrong. And the old woman's words kept ringing in my ears.
Maybe I was in Hell.
"Excuse me?" I caught the attention of the two women in the hopes that they'd bring sense to this insanity and drag me from my momentary nightmare back to my parents. "What is going on?"
The two women looked at eachother, giving looks like I was some sort of weirdo. Surely I should've been the one looking at them like that, since they were the ones dressed like they'd come from the 9th century!
"Hello?" I tried again, making them begin to shift nervously.
I didn't catch everything they said, but the word "Norðhealf" struck me as something I understood. North? What were they saying? Lord how I wished my father was there. Even my mother would know more.
The other woman shook her head, approaching me slowly. She gestured to herself, "Eawynn." Before turning to her friend, "Ætte." And again, she pointed at the city walls. "Eoforwic." She explained. Though I knew very little Old English, I knew enough history to know that Eoforwic was the Anglo-Saxon name for York. Slowly turned to me, pointing at me.
"Iris." I answered her silent question. I suppose she saw the fear and confusion on my face, the look of terror and sheer lack of understanding. Although I clung to the idea that this was an elaborate trick, a rouse to scare me, each second made it harder. How could a whole city disappear? Where was everyone? Where were the electric lights and shops? It was all gone, vanished without a trace. The hotel I was meant to meet my parents at should've been visible from here. But it wasn't. Nothing familiar was. In its place, there seemed to be a crude replica - a tiny city of wooden houses and basic technology. The railways had gone. The cars had gone. The more people I saw, the more I noticed clothing from the dark ages and not the 20th century. My mind ached for answers, an explanation for the impossible, but I could think of none.
Eawynn said something gently, her tone compassionate. Slowly, she reached towards my injured head as though she was approaching a startled animal in the headlights of a car - though I suppose I must've seemed that way as I stood in utter shock and fear. But before she could even touch me, she was pulled back by two tall men.
They eyes me up warily, deducing that I was clearly no good. "wicce!" They yelled. "hæðen!" And suddenly, I was no longer in the gentle embrace of two kind strangers, but rather the capture of two rather rough men who had decided that I looked like some sort of witch. I suppose to them I must've done. And as they dragged me through the streets, I couldn't help but scream and thrash, unable to break their hold on me.
