Hanna rose to her knees. It was fortunate that she had fallen into a soft patch of leaves and moss. The air was crisp, and she saw her own breath in front of her face. She was in the woods. It was early spring, where some trees had already started showing a flush of new leaves, while others still remained apparently dormant. Tiny rays of sunshine cut through the trees. It was morning.
She ran her hand over her face. Wait. Where am I? she wondered. Where were Davin and the car? Or her phone? She stood quickly, and whirled around trying to orient herself. A wave of panic began to build in her belly, followed immediately by a strong sense of woosiness. She dropped to her knees again, grasping the ground in an effort to stop the world from spinning. Nothing here looked familiar to her. Maybe she had hit her head. She looked at herself and saw that, despite being dirty, she still wore what she last remembered wearing: The long spring dress that Davin liked so much, and those marginally comfortable flats that she wore with everything that wasn’t jeans. Her hands were still adorned with the rings that Davin had given her over the years. She felt her neck and discovered her favorite necklace still hung there.
She attempted again to look around. None other of her personal articles were around. No purse or car keys. Of course they were probably still in the car. But where was the car? Where was Davin?
“Davin?” she tried to call for her husband, but her voice seemed weak and distant. She tried again, “Davin!”
Where is he?
She stood again, this time moving more slowly. She scanned the terrain for any familiar features, but found that everything seemed wrong. There were far too many trees here, and none of them seemed familiar. Last she remembered, the trees were fully leafed out for the summer, so why were so many of these trees still in bud? It was much colder than she expected. And damp. Everywhere there was moss.
She circled around the small clearing where she had awakened, trying to find any evidence that might explain how she got there. Her body ached as if she had fallen from a great distance. Or had been in a car accident. Where was the car?
“DAVIN!”
She limped another circle around the perimeter of the clearing. The road – a road – surely must lie nearby. She could discern a slightly clearer path though the dense forest in one direction, and decided to walk that way.
She felt as if she had been walking for hours. The day had warmed a bit, and the walking had loosened her stiff joints. She was moving pretty comfortably now, but she was growing thirsty. All the while, there had been no sign of a road of any kind. She’d spotted a few game trails, but definitely nothing man-made.
The terrain had remained relatively flat as well. This bothered her. At last she recalled, she had been in the foothills of some significant mountains. Here, there was no evidence of any mountains nearby. Everything was relatively flat. What had happened?
She had stopped calling for Davin more than an hour ago. But the silence of this place frightened her, so she sang quietly to herself, as she often did when she was hiking alone. She wondered if there were bears in this forest, and opted to make noise to frighten the would-be predator off. But she worried of attracting the attention of others who may be less intimidated by the human presence.
She stopped suddenly. She thought she heard something. A voice. Maybe not. But then, a shout. A woman’s voice. And a man’s. He sounded angry. The gentle breeze carried the voices away and silence returned. Hanna strained her ears. Voices again wafted on the wind into her ears, and she began to move in the direction of the sound.
Hanna walked on, carefully tracking the voices for about a half mile. As she got closer, she could tell that there were more than one woman and more than one man shouting and carrying on. At least one of the women was crying and begging, so far as Hanna could tell. The men seemed to be taunting the women.
Hanna dreaded what manner of scene she was approaching. Every bad horror movie she’d ever seen came into her mind. All she could imagine was a scene of rape and butchery, and she didn’t know if she wanted to see that. However, so long as the women continued to cry out, she felt obliged to move closer and see if there was anything she could do. She nearly turned back a dozen times, when renewed cries drew her forward. Hanna wasn’t sure where she was, but she knew that something was amiss. She felt she should do something.
And she could not convince herself that she was not simply dreaming. Maybe this was all just a dream and she would awake soon next to Davin. Maybe the men’s shouts were simply her brain’s interpretation of Davin’s snoring. She would wake soon to force him to roll over. Yes, that had to be it.
It sounded as if the tussling parties were directly in front of her, just below the little rise she was climbing up. She squatted down to approach more carefully. If there was some wickedness going on, she did not want to march into the middle of it. It would be best to sneak up and assess the situation before moving forward with any plan of action.
What she saw when she crested the hill caused her to shake her head in wonderment. This must be a dream. She observed two women being prodded by four men. The women – girls actually, teenagers at best – were crying out and begging the men for mercy. They wore what looked like frilly nightgowns of some ancient age. The girls were bare footed, and bloodied, from the blows and prods of the men.
The men wore outfits straight from Arthurian legends, so far as Hanna could tell. Or maybe crusaders, with chain mail and helmets and swords slung on their hips. They wore cloth coverings over their mail which bore an eagle-looking insignia. Four horses stood nearby, wearing rigid saddles that reminded her of the knights she’d seen jousting at renaissance festivals. The horses were also decorated with this eagle insignia.
Hanna listened carefully to the men’s jeers. She thought that they were speaking English, but they had a very thick accent. Irish, maybe? She could only pick out a few words, but what she heard did not bode well for the girls. As close as she could gather, these men meant to rape then possibly kill the frightened girls. Hanna wondered what she could do to prevent this.
The men spoke among themselves, clearly planning a coordinated attack. At once, they lunged forward, two men grappling each woman, forcing them to the ground and attempting to bind their hands. The girls cried out in terror, and Hanna took this as a call to action. She gripped a straight and green tree branch which lay nearby and pulled it from the ground. It was rooted firmly, but she was able to pull it from the soft soil. She hoped it would suffice.
She leapt up and ran toward the group, planning loosely to bash each man on the head, so that the girls could escape. Her first swing did meet its mark, but did not knock the consciousness from the man. It did, however, alert the men to her presence. Quickly, the men shifted their attention from the girls on the ground in front of them, to this woman attacker behind them. One man, the man she had struck, drew his sword.
The girls, perhaps too frightened to see this as an opportunity to escape, barely moved. They gawked at Hanna, crying in their terror.
“Run!” shouted Hanna. “Get out of here!”
The girls were frozen. The men circled Hanna, jeering at her. Hanna positioned herself between the men and the girls. “Run, you idiots!” she shouted at the girls.
The injured man swung his sword and Hanna blocked it with her stick. He swung again and she blocked. The other men taunted and goaded. This man was furious.
Hanna suddenly realized that this was not likely to end well.
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 