There was a time, once upon time, a long time ago, when I lived in a world of stories. When I couldn’t sleep amazing things would play out in my head – dragons, and magic, and myth; stories to escape reality and make me wonder where they came from. Or sometimes the simplest, most average of stories, that would resonate with people because, let’s be honest, most of life is average.
But over time the painful monotony of 9-5 killed the world of dreams I once loved so much. My creativity all but vanished, and I’d sit in front of a blank screen with 26 letters to choose from and no rules to follow, and yet, nothing.
But some nights, like this night, I wake up out of a deep sleep and feel just a flicker of what once was. As though I can almost hear the waves of a magical island crashing, and see the moonlight reflect off the fairy’s wings.
Tonight is one of those nights. It’s been an awfully long time, and I’ll prob regret it when the alarm goes off for work in the am, but maybe, just maybe, there’s a story here…
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She didn’t know why she awoke, so suddenly and completely. She’d only been asleep a couple hours, but she knew she was up for a while now. Stumbling in the dark, she grabbed some clothes and left the room so as not to wake her partner. The old house was quiet – not even the furnace was running, so every creak of the floor was magnified. The highway, almost never heard in the distance, sounded as though it were right next door.
She dressed quickly, and her curious dog – always up for an adventure – sleepily came to investigate. “Want to go for a walk?” she whispered, instantly animating the dog who started spinning in circles. She smiled and ushered her out the door before the excited scrambling would wake her sleeping partner.
It was eerily light outside – the harvest moon far brighter than the widely spaced streetlights. It was a safe neighbourhood – she wasn’t overly concerned about being out alone, even so late.
She and the dog made their way along their habitual route, as one does, the dog eagerly leading the way. Something seemed, not quite right – it took her a moment to figure out that all the noise had stopped. That which had been so loud in her house, was silent outdoors. She couldn’t hear her footsteps as they scrunched the gravel, nor her dog panting with excitement. She shook her head once to clear her ears, but it did nothing. Up ahead, she saw a woman walking toward her. Odd, given it was the middle of the night and she never even saw people on this road during the day. The moonlight framed the woman in such a way she appeared to glow.
She felt a shiver go down her spin, and shortened the dog’s leash, pulling her closer. “Hello,” she said as she passed the woman. The woman tilted her head and looked at her as though studying her, before continuing on her way without saying anything.
Weird she thought, and turned toward home, suddenly far less interested in being out alone at night. But when she turned the corner, it wasn’t the houses she walked past every day in front of her. Instead of her nice suburban neighbourhood, all she could see were farms. Sound returned, but instead of the mildly aggravating growl of the highway, she heard the quiet occasional scurry of a small nocturnal critter.
She spun around, but the corner she had just turned was gone. Her dog was sniffing eagerly, pulling on the leash, clearly enjoying this new landscape, but she felt her heartrate accelerate as panic quickly set in. What the…. This made no sense. It wasn’t possible. And yet, it had happened.
She continued walking toward. Where her home should be, having no idea what she’d find. She felt a huge relief when she got to her street to see her house was still there; it was the only one around, but it was there. It was, however, not quite right…. There were no cars in the driveway for one thing. Even if for some odd reason her partner had gone out, her car should still be there. And the For Sale sign that waved wistfully in the darkness when she’d left, was missing.
She was not terribly surprised when she tried the door, to find it locked. But she had noticed that not far from where her garage used to be there was now a barn, so she led the dog that way, figuring they could stay there for the night and figure out what was going on in daylight.
“When did you get here?” She was awoken by a pre-adolescent boy wearing clothes she’d only ever seen in the movies. “Mom! We’ve got another one,” he shouted.
“Another one what?” she asked, hearing the mother’s faint reply from the house.
He just shook his head, “Mom will tell you,” and went deeper into the barn.
“Oh dear, you must’ve had a rough night. When are you from?”
“Uh, what?” The boy’s mother stood before her, a heavyset woman with an easy smile who smelled slightly of fresh bread.
“What year is it?” the woman asked, as though that were the most natural question upon finding someone sleeping in her barn.
“Uh 2020?” hating that it came out as a question, but suddenly doubting the truth she knew.
“And this is your house?” she asked.
“Well, yes….? Although we don’t have a barn…”
“Okay, well it’s 1852 now child, why don’t you come have breakfast and we’ll talk.”
She followed, flabbergasted, into the house she knew so well and yet not at all. Everything seemed to suit what little she knew of the time period. The woman gestured to sit down and put a plate of biscuits in front of her.
“You crossed the ley lines under the harvest moon and greeted the traveler,” she said as though that made perfect sense.
“Uh, I took my dog for a walk in the moonlight?”
“That’s okay child, it happens more often than you’d think. Fortunately, we know how to send you home.”
The relief she felt was instant and overwhelming, but followed almost immediately by intense curiosity.
“Wait, you mean this has happened before?”
“Oh yes, at least a couple times a year we get visitors. The first few were a shock – a couple of them stayed and it took a while to figure out how to send the others home. All of them live in this house in their time, and all of them walked under the harvest moon and met a woman who said nothing to them. You’re here for a week, but on our next moon, we can send you home.”
“Are you sure? I mean, if people leave, how do you know they get home?”
“We don’t for sure, but we had one visitor that wasn’t surprised to be here, which makes us think it works. There’s a diary – I’ll show you where it’s hidden, that we ask all the travellers to write in. One person had found it while renovating the house – apparently inside it, are references made by people who returned home. That’s the best I can do. But if you don’t want to risk it, we can help you find a life here.”
She spent the week as their guest in a house she considered her own, in the most fascinating history lesson ever. The family asked many questions about her time, interested more in daily life than in world events, and they shared what little they knew of the magic surrounding their farm. They’d had visitors from farther in the future than her, but didn’t have any details to share.
When the week was up, she followed their directions, holding tightly to her dog, and woke to her alarm buzzing in her ear. Rolling over she grabbed her phone, which confirmed it was really the next morning.
She laughed at herself for the intensity of her dream, and then realized she was dressed. Eyes wide she got up and went up to the attic. In a hidden cabinet, she’d never known about before, she found an old leather journal.
With shaking hands and complete disbelief, she sat down on the dusty floor and started to read.
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